Pastries

Despite our French connection, you will, unfortunately, not find delicate pastries, including croissants, Danish, and a lot of fine cakes in the list of traditional Seychellois pastries. The reasons here are, may be, because there was a lack in skills and knowledge among the settlers to produce these items as well as a shortage of basic materials like flour, butter, milk and eggs. Or, may be that the equipment to bake them in were not available. There were however, some local cakes that were popular and they did not require a lot of finesse and some of these were barlafin, lapatsek and toufpiti.

The biscuits that were cooked were mainly done on hot plate and made from cassava flour and required very few ingredients. Galet or cassava biscuit, a contribution from our African slaves, is an example of an item that was, and still is, very popular and consumed a breakfast.

In the early days of settlement, the settlers had no ovens as we know it. When ovens were available they were made of red earth, granite and cement or lime and were wood fired. They were basic and ideal for baking basic bread, and a round local rusk called gros biskwi. The gros biskwi, currently known as larou saret, because of its uneven roundness, is a dehydrated biscuit that is still very popular all over the islands. This biscuit keeps for ages in a tin and was ideal for island life. It is a biscuit that is unique to the islands and originated from a need by the sailors and settlers in the early years to have food items that could keep for a long time when at sea. Its long shelf life provided an insurance against hunger in the absence of fresh provisions.