The pink biscuit was created in Reims, in 1691 according to historians. It was invented in its fi rst form by a baker who, wanting to use the remaining heat in his oven after baking bread, put some special pastry into it, already baked once, to fi nish drying it out. Hence the name “bis-cuit”: cooked twice. This cake was originally white, but the natural vanilla used to fl avour it left brown traces which they thought they could hide by colouring the biscuit red. To do so, they used carmine, a substance extracted from the cochineal insect.
