Chouquette, the pastry of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games

Step aside, almond croissant. You’ve had your day. This is the pastry of the Paris Olympics and once you’ve had one you simply won’t be able to stop.

Linda Kabla from Patisserie Maison Victoria. Picture: Michael Klein

Step aside, almond croissant. You’ve had your day.

There’s a new treat in town and they’re so good, you can accidentally eat 12 of them in one sitting. Trust us on that one.

It’s called the chouquette, and it’s the pastry of the Paris Olympics.

If you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry. Truth be told, neither had we.

We like to consider ourselves pastry connoisseurs, or at least very big fans, but when these unassuming little puffs bobbed up at our hotel breakfast buffet we were intrigued.

Linda Kabla, from Patisserie Maison Victoria, shows off the delicious treats. Picture: Michael Klein

What were these French delights? And in the land of the baguette and the croissant, could they hold their own?

They were questions that needed answering and so, purely for research purposes, a sample was necessary.

And we were impressed. Very impressed.

The chouquette is tres magnifique from beginning to end, which is a total of two or maybe three bites.

The chouquette is the pastry of the Paris Olympics.

Let us enlighten you.

Loosely, “chouquette” translates to “little bit of choux”, which is the dough used to make eclairs and beignets.

They are small spheres of pastry, coated in pearl sugar then baked to golden perfection. And that’s it.

It’s like a profiterole but without the filling or the topping. Just a cute little hollow ball of dough.

And that simplicity is the beauty of the chouquette. What you see is what you get.

There’s none of that fancy layering or glazing you so commonly find in a French patisserie.

The chouquette doesn’t need it. It is simply that good.

Some French food blogs even recommend chouquettes as an option for pastry lovers on a diet because they’re light and not too sweet.

That’s assuming you can contain yourself to just one or two. A difficult task when French bakeries often sell them by the dozen.

That’s the other thing about the chouquette. They’re so convenient to pick up in a pack and eat on the go.

Chouquettes are easy to fall in love with. Picture: Michael Klein

For the tres chic pastry lovers of Paris, it’s a just-as-delicious alternative to the flakey, messy croissant. What’s not to love?

And so, when it comes to the legacy of Paris 2024, who really knows what it will be. But we know what it should be.

Let’s make chouquettes a thing in Australia. Get them in bakeries, supermarkets, vending machines. Sell them at the footy. We’ll never look back. And we’ve got Paris to thank for it all.

Vive la France and vive la chouquette!

Originally published as Chouquette, the pastry of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games