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Coudenbrouc House and the éclair

There is a remarkable well-known Bruges legend about number 13 Cordoeaniersstraat. The story takes place in 1510, when a wooden trading house stood at that location. The house was occupied by Jan Claessens, a wealthy dean of the guild of tailors, and his two daughters Siska and Wanne. He rented out some rooms at the back of the house to a fellow merchant of Spanish descent, Satabrilla.

The generous Spaniard provided the best wines and expensive gifts for the daughters every day. However, his flirting with the daughters led to jealousy on the part of Claessens's cousin Pieter, who wanted to marry the eldest daughter, and the girls neglected their household chores.

After a while, the family noticed that Satabrilla always wore the same trousers and disappeared every night via the canal at the rear. When the daughters went to investigate his rooms at night, they discovered that he had left without his inseparable trousers. They decided to hide the trousers as a joke. In the morning they discovered that Satabrilla and all his personal belongings were gone, except for his trousers, which on inspection only had a round hole in the back.

Jan Claessens therefore quickly came to the conclusion that the owner of the trousers was none other than the devil, and he immediately threw the trousers into the fireplace. The trousers caught fire with a lot of smoke, lightning and sulfur odour, setting the entire room and the rest of the wooden house ablaze. Thus, Claessens' entire trading house went up in flames. Only the trousers were found intact in the ashes.

In 1518, a baker had a stone house built at that location. Above the door, he placed a plaque with a picture of the two daughters and Satabrilla's infamous trousers between them. In memory of the lightning that destroyed the wooden house, the baker created a pastry he named 'éclair'.

Unfortunately, we do not know what this 16th century 'éclair' looked like, nor do we know the recipe, but the pastry will undoubtedly have been very different from the éclair we know today. Indeed, in the sixteenth century there was a great fondness for pastries strongly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper and ginger, such as gingerbread and gingersnap, which date from the same period.

The éclair we know today is a French creation from 1850 but no less delicious. During your stay in our B&B, we invite you to enjoy a delicious éclair, made by one of the many fine pastry chefs in Bruges.