AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

While we may be ac­cus­tomed to the sweet­ness and rich­ness of our lo­cal desserts, one Trin­bag­on­ian bak­er is bring­ing the re­fined taste of France to lo­cal palates, tak­ing her mo­bile patis­serie across the coun­try.

For Karen Fe­lix, a love for bak­ing was lit­er­al­ly “baked in­to her DNA.” Com­ing from a fam­i­ly of bak­ers, both her grand­moth­ers and her par­ents in­tro­duced her to the art of craft­ing tra­di­tion­al Tri­ni del­i­ca­cies.

French pas­try, how­ev­er, has a charm all its own. Its del­i­cate shapes, glossy fin­ish­es and un­fa­mil­iar names make it al­most im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore. For Fe­lix, that al­lure was just the be­gin­ning of a life­long fas­ci­na­tion, paired with the re­al­i­sa­tion that many French pas­tries nat­u­ral­ly suit health-con­scious di­ets.

“We now have the craze of ‘ke­to-friend­ly.’ But when you look at French bak­ing tech­niques, they’ve been ke­to-friend­ly for a long time. And they don’t need to ad­ver­tise it,” Fe­lix told Guardian Me­dia.

A pas­sion shaped by fam­i­ly

Be­yond the tech­niques passed down by her fam­i­ly and her home eco­nom­ics class­es at Bish­op Anstey High School, Fe­lix de­scribes her­self as a self-taught, non-clas­si­cal­ly trained chef. She ini­tial­ly trained as an ac­coun­tant be­fore switch­ing ca­reers to be­come a se­nior anaes­thet­ic nurse in the op­er­at­ing room. Both pro­fes­sions con­sumed much of her time af­ter she moved to Eng­land in 1999.

But it was her dri­ve and pas­sion that pushed her to mas­ter French gourmet bak­ing in what­ev­er spare time she could find.

Even­tu­al­ly, that hob­by blos­somed in­to a small busi­ness as friends and col­leagues, thor­ough­ly im­pressed by her work, be­gan plac­ing reg­u­lar re­quests and in­sist­ing on pay­ing.

“I was tak­ing or­ders from col­leagues at work. This one col­league want­ed to give a cake as a gift. I spent all week­end bak­ing up a cross-sec­tion of things for her, of items. And when she saw it, she could not be­lieve it. She said, ‘I thought you were just go­ing to bake a nor­mal cake. What you’ve done here? You are a prop­er chef,’” Fe­lix re­count­ed.

“I said, ‘I’m not clas­si­cal­ly trained, but yeah, I can hold my own.’ And she gave me twice as much mon­ey.”

Build­ing a French patis­serie

As Fe­lix lived in Eng­land, it gave her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it France more fre­quent­ly, which she said in­spired her fur­ther to build a French patis­serie busi­ness.

“I had been to France about three times and I just de­cid­ed I’m go­ing to plunge in. I’m go­ing to do it. Ei­ther it’s go­ing to come out good or it’s go­ing to fail.”

Her busi­ness, Faites Vous Plaisir, was born.

“It means ‘please your­self’ or ‘treat your­self,’ which is what I hope my cus­tomers are able to do when they taste my prod­uct,” the 53-year-old said.

It was dur­ing the pan­dem­ic that she launched her busi­ness. Learn­ing through on­line culi­nary tu­to­ri­als, she be­gan with clafoutis be­fore mas­ter­ing madeleines and oth­er French clas­sics.

Af­ter start­ing on a small scale in Eng­land, Fe­lix re­turned home to Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2024. Though she had to re­build from scratch, her ven­ture quick­ly gained mo­men­tum.

Mas­ter­ing the craft

To­day, Fe­lix sets up shop at var­i­ous pop-up mar­kets and lo­ca­tions across the coun­try, in­clud­ing the Ed­die Hart Grounds, the Pad­dock in San­ta Cruz and sev­er­al spots in south Trinidad, where she plans to ex­pand her pres­ence.

Faites Vous Plaisir con­tin­ues to draw cu­ri­ous crowds to its glass dis­play cas­es, of­fer­ing lo­cal­ly craft­ed, au­then­tic French treats.

When asked about the se­cret be­hind her pas­tries, Fe­lix points to one es­sen­tial in­gre­di­ent: au­then­tic French but­ter.

“French but­ter is just so dif­fer­ent to every oth­er but­ter out there. And I know, be­cause I have tried to make the same thing with oth­er but­ters. It’s not the same ef­fect,” Fe­lix ex­plained.

“In cre­at­ing, I try to be healthy. So I use things like av­o­ca­do oil, grape­seed oil, al­mond flour, Trini­tario choco­late—be­cause we do have the best choco­late in the world.”

A French touch

with a Tri­ni flavour

Along­side lo­cal Trini­tario co­coa, trop­i­cal fruits like gua­va and man­go fre­quent­ly make their way in­to her cre­ations, re­sult­ing in a de­li­cious fu­sion of flavours.

Her menu of­fers a taste of both clas­sic French pas­try and her own cre­ative in­ter­pre­ta­tions, in­clud­ing gateaux velours au choco­lat, madeleines, fi­nanciers, far Bre­ton and delice de frais­es, along­side French but­ter­cake, beurre noisette gateaux, brown­ies and a se­lec­tion of hand­made bis­cuits.

French bak­ing, Fe­lix notes, is not some­thing that can be whipped up in a few hours.

Many items re­quire days of prep work, where time and pa­tience take prece­dence over short­cuts.

She de­scribes French meth­ods as “sim­ple but tricky,” re­quir­ing equal mea­sures of pre­ci­sion and care.

Tak­ing French

pas­try across T&T

While the work­load is de­mand­ing, sup­port from her sis­ter and close cir­cle helps keep op­er­a­tions run­ning smooth­ly.

“I have peo­ple com­ing from as far as Ce­dros, you know. I have some­body who want­ed me to come to Moru­ga. Peo­ple want me to teach chil­dren that sort of thing,” she said.

Fe­lix has even won over French ex­pa­tri­ates liv­ing in Trinidad, as well as vis­i­tors from Guade­loupe and Mar­tinique.

De­spite the grow­ing de­mand, Fe­lix says she has no im­me­di­ate plans to open a brick-and-mor­tar store­front.

She prefers the flex­i­bil­i­ty and per­son­al reach that her mo­bile patis­serie pro­vides.

It is de­mand­ing work, but Fe­lix has no in­ten­tion of slow­ing down as she con­tin­ues to share her pas­sion for French bak­ing across the is­land.