La Pompe à l’Huile

“The Christmas dessert par excellence”

It’s Christmas:  It's high time to light up the stars again - Guillaume Apollinaire

In 1875, Augustin Chaissang, writing for the Academic Society of Puy, in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region of France, published the diary of one Jean (Jehan) Burel, born in 1540 (died in 1603) into a family of tanners. Burel himself worked as an artisan tanner, and eventually was also named commissioner of his town, eventually put in charge of surveillance and policing during the plague when those struck with the disease hid in an attempt to avoid being sent away from Puy.

And Jean Burel, in 1572, in the pages of his diary, mentions the local specialty pompe for the first time in writing: Pompes et petits pains - pompes and bread rolls - were made and given as charity to the town’s poor, most particularly in times of famine and hardship. 

During the years 1579 and 1580, the town saw the arrival of 4,000 men, women, and children from the mountains “dying of hunger…a pitiful and lamentable sight”. The women did what they could to raise money in order to bake for these poor immigrants, saving and collecting wheat, flour, and money. “Par ce moien, on faisoi fère des pompes & petitz pains jufques à cinq deniers la pièce, desquelz on faisoit la livraison ordinaire.” - “In this way, they could have the pompes and the little breads made for up to 5 deniers each, from which ordinary deliveries were made… So great was the famine and the necessity,” Burel continues, “that the city…ordered… the preparation of pompes which would be distributed and sold to the poor inhabitants with the means to bake them in their own homes.” Pompes were also given to the poor on the Feast of the Ascension, along with flesh (meat?) and wine. 

“The Christmas dessert par excellence” - Jean Ricard, Le Gros Souper à Marseille, 1955

Pompe or pompe à l’huile is a sweet, brioche-type bread of the Provence region in the South of France (from Aveyron and Arles down to Marseille) which, over time, became a holiday tradition, now prepared for and eaten on Christmas Eve during the Gros Souper or Great Supper before Midnight Mass, one of the 13 Desserts - pompe à l’huile, fougasse bread, walnuts and hazelnuts (or mendiants made with walnuts and hazelnuts), nougat, candied fruits, apples, pears, oranges, grapes, dates (sometimes stuffed with marzipan), and pâte de fruits - all copiously washed down with the local vin cuit (“cooked wine” which is a sweet red dessert wine). Made from flour and yeast, sugar, eggs, olive oil, of course, and flavored with the zest of local citrus and fleur d’oranger, orange flower water made from the blossoms of Provençal bitter oranges, it is the simplest of treats but so surprisingly delicious, fragrant, delicate, and tender.

Pompe à l’huile - literally oil pump - gets its unusual name from the ancient process in Provence of the millers tossing flour into the presses at the end of the olive oil production process to soak up - or pump - the residual oil at the bottom of the vats or tanks. This olive oil-moistened flour, so as to avoid waste, was then turned into bread. The pompe à l’huile is related to but not to be confused with the local gibassier, a similarly shaped bread; the gibassier is a drier, flatter bread flavored with aniseed where the pompe is sweetened and flavored with orange flower water, fluffy and moist, and eaten not as a bread but as a cake. The pompe, though, if taken strictly, is a type of gibassier, the word gibassier coming from the provençal word gibous or bump/hump, a worthy description of either yeast-risen baked good.

While it’s clear that the cake’s name is connected to the oil making process, others claim that it refers to the act of using it to soak - or pump - up the wine that it is served with at the Gros Souper.

“On the following days, it is also dunked in the morning café au lait. It's a tradition that, although it's not written down anywhere, or even noticed as such by those who practice it, is nonetheless widespread, and these Christmas pompe breakfasts remain among the best memories of the holiday.” - Jean Ricard, Le Gros Souper à Marseille, 1955

A Christmas specialty, the pompe à l’huile is shaped into a round disc then slashed - some say to represent the Crown of Thorns. It should never be cut with a knife; the pompe à l’huile is always ripped by hand to imitate Jesus tearing the bread into pieces for his disciples. According to tradition, if the pompe is cut rather than torn, one risks ruin during the year to come. On the flip side, the pompe à l’huile, ritually made, baked, torn by hand, and eaten, is a symbol of success. 

I am usually late for holidays and knew that I needed to begin sharing traditional French Christmas recipes now so you have the time to integrate them into your menus. I begin with my absolute favorite, the pompe à l’huile, a recipe I discovered while doing research for my article in Bake From Scratch magazine’s Christmas issue of last year. I never imagined, when developing and testing this recipe, that something so simple and so delicately flavored could be so outrageously good. So make this for the holidays but keep making it all year round.

Pompe à l’huile

The pompe à l’huile is one of the traditional 13 Desserts in the Provence region of France served at the meal before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Large, round, and fluffy, this delicately sweetened bread is light and airy, beautifully if subtly fragrant with orange, flavored with the zest of local citrus and fleur d’oranger, orange flower water made from the blossoms of Provençal bitter oranges.

⅖ cup (80 grams) sugar

2 ½ teaspoons (8 grams) active dry yeast

½ cup (120 ml) warm water

2 cups (270 grams) all-purpose flour, more for kneading

⅛ teaspoon salt

Finely grated zest of 1 medium- to large-orange

⅜ cup (100 ml) good quality olive oil

2 tablespoons orange flower water

Measure out the sugar; remove 1 teaspoon of the sugar and place it with the yeast in a small bowl. Add the warm water and let the yeast activate for 15 minutes until a thick head of foam forms.

Place the flour in a large mixing bowl with the salt, the orange zest, and the rest of the sugar. Using your hands, blend the dry ingredients together, breaking up the clumps of orange zest until the zest is evenly distributed in the flour. Make a well in the center.

Once the yeast has been activated, pour the mixture into the well in the flour. Add the olive oil and the orange flower water. Using a wooden spoon, stir until the ingredients are well blended and a dough pulls together. If the dough is too loose and wet, stir in another 1 - 2 tablespoons of flour.

Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth. Place this dough into a lightly oiled bowl, turning the dough to barely coat with the oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 2 hours; it will have risen but not doubled in size.

Knead the dough on a floured work surface for just a couple of minutes until smooth. Roll the dough out to a 9 to 9 ½ -inch (23- to 24-cm) circle ½ -inch (1-cm) thick. Carefully lift the circle of dough and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet; reshape if necessary. Make 8 or 10 evenly spaced slashes in the dough from about an inch from the center and stopping about an inch from the outer edge. Cover loosely with a piece of plastic wrap and the clean kitchen towel and let rest for 1 hour. It will rise just slightly.

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Brush the pompe à l’huile all over with a light layer of olive oil then place in the preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes until risen and a deep golden all over.

Remove from the oven and slide off the baking sheet onto a cooling rack and immediately brush all over with a light layer of olive oil. Allow to cool until warm.

Dust with powdered sugar and serve, passing around the galette and letting each guest rip off their own wedge. 

Thank you for subscribing to Life’s a Feast by Jamie Schler where I share my recipes, mostly French traditional recipes, with their amusing origins and history. I’m so glad that you’re here. You can support my work by sharing the link to my Substack with your friends, family, and your social media followers. If you would like to see my other book projects in the making, read my other essays, and participate in the discussions, please upgrade to a paid subscription.