Chausson aux pommes

Chausson aux pommes is a viennoiserie pastry filled with applesauce and folded into a turnover shape, known in Belgium as gosette aux pommes, with a lemon cream variant called chausson au citron. According to local legend it originated in the 16th century in Saint-Calais, France, after a 1580 plague epidemic killed part of the town's population and the local chatelaine offered survivors a kind of apple pie, a gesture commemorated ever since with an annual celebration each September. Since the 18th century the pastry has been called chausson aux pommes, French for apple slipper, after the technique of filling the dough with apple puree the way one might put on a slipper; a guild founded in 1992 maintains the tradition today with an annual festival that draws thousands of visitors.