Wonderful shop to get chocolates, candies, cookies, and pastries in Guérande. Since I had already…read morebeen in France for over a week by the time I made it to Maison Georges Larnicol, I had to be careful about my sugar intake. Don't get the wrong idea though. It's not like I didn't get anything, I just took it easy. And got myself a couple Kouignettes. A Kouignette is a baby Kouign-amann (to teach you how to participate in the fun of saying this wonderfully buttery pastry's name, follow me: cooñ-amon--with that ñ sound from Spanish or 'gn' sound from Italian or French, as it were--when said quickly, it's cooñamon). Prior to this visit, I had my first actual Kouign-amann in Rochefort-en-Terre (which is an awesome place to visit around Christmas!) and it was the natural (or plain) one. Maison Georges Larnicol has an interesting variety, with many of them catching my attention. I picked Rum Raisin and Pistachio, in an effort to not overdo it.
Service was very nice, though I had AT to do all of the talking with the woman at the register when we decided to call it a day and go pay for the Kouignettes that I picked and bagged myself. I snapped a few photos with nary an evil eye, which would never happen in Paris.
I didn't eat my Kouignettes right away, and actually, I only at the Rum Raisin, which was delectable. I saved the Pistachio one for several days and gave it to my sister as a possibly stale souvenir from Guérande. She ate it the next day, which at this point meant the Kouignette was going on 4-5 days old... And she absolutely loved it and asked me if I knew where she could purchase one. Unfortunately, I have not seen anything resembling Kouign-amanns at any of the French bakeries that I have visited in the metro Atlanta area so I had to break the bad news to her. The flip side of all this is AT's mom hooked me up with two cookbooks of recipes for traditional dishes from the Brittany region. And guess what recipe shows up there?
