Ingredients :

• Vergeoise Brune (Brown Beet Sugar) — This is what makes all the difference. Vergeoise brune is a beet sugar with molasses — moist, slightly sticky, with a taste leaning towards caramel and licorice. It’s easy to find in French supermarkets, but abroad, dark brown sugar is a good substitute. If you can’t find it, cassonade helps out, but the result will be flatter in flavor.
• Butter — For both the dough and the topping. For the dough, it must be soft — really soft, not melted. Taken out of the fridge an hour before, it should easily squash under your finger. For the topping, we cut it into small cubes and place them directly on the raw dough.
• Liquid heavy cream — Not thick cream, but liquid cream — it spreads better over the dough and seeps into the little hollows we’ve formed. A tiny amount is enough, but it’s what makes the topping melty rather than dry and grainy.
• Active dry yeast — Half a packet. Before mixing it, activate it in lukewarm milk for five minutes — when it starts to foam slightly on the surface, that’s a good sign. Lukewarm, not hot: if the milk burns the back of your hand, the yeast will be completely useless.