I met with Julien Plumart, master baker and owner of beloved patisserie Plumart on Queens Road, supplying the best croissants in the city, and so much more, for over a decade now. We spoke about why croissants can’t be blue, his time competing on Bake Off The Professionals, and the differences between French and English baking.

 

 

Can you remember your first time baking, and the first time people tried one of your bakes?

The first time I tried baking I was about four years old. My parents had a restaurant in the French alps and I used go and visit them and beg them to play a game of football with me, but because they couldn’t leave the kitchen, instead, to keep me busy, they would set up a stool for me so I could reach the counter and give me a piece of sweet dough that I would knead for about an hour; far too long to be edible, but just long enough top keep a child occupied. I remember ending up with a rock solid inch thick apple tart that my parents offered at the restaurant’s staff meal, and although they were very kind and chewed their way through it, I don’t think they were desperate to try my four year old baking again!

 

What is your favourite thing to bake?

Funnily enough, an apple tart. Hopefully a little more refined now. A classic, made perfectly. A sweet paste, a little bit of cream, some slow cooked apple, a little honey on top. When it’s simple, you don’t have anywhere to hide. Simple to learn, hard to master, you know? And you’re always improving, always getting closer to the perfection in that simplicity. But also, everyone likes the classics, they’re a guaranteed crowd pleaser. A wasabi white chocolate whatever might sound interesting but most people are going to go for what they know, the vanilla, chocolate, strawberry flavours.

 

What is the secret to a good croissant?

Well there isn’t just one, but it would be easier if there was! Other than the obvious – good quality ingredients, proper detailed techniques – one thing we focus on is temperature. We almost freeze our milk because when the milk is warmer there’s more friction. 24 degrees for the dough is ideal, 28 is not so great. The gluten reacts differently at different temperatures, same for the butter. At 28 degrees the butter will melt and harden again differently because it’s almost reached melting point and the dough will have a very different texture. That’s why baking really is a true science, it’s a numbers game, and if something goes wrong then you can look back and adjust the numbers. A few degrees in temperature makes all the difference!

 

How do the English and the French differ in their approaches to baking?

Ultimately a baker is a baker, wherever they’re baking. But perhaps the French saw some unrealised potential in this world of sweet treats. In England you had the lemon drizzle and the Victoria sponge and you were content with that, happy to stop there, but in France we wanted more. So while no country is better than the other, some countries definitely invest more time and enthusiasm into certain areas. France has put in a lot of time into patisserie, and now we have definitely have a lot more options to show for it. But a good Victoria sponge will always be delicious too.

 

If you had to choose only one baked good to eat for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

Can I say apple tart again? I might say a good chocolate eclair, because I love dark chocolate. But on a hot day it would be a sloppy mess. An apple tart is good all year round.

 

What is the best baking smell?

I can’t narrow it down so it’s gonna have to be top three. Third place is sea salt caramel; the moment you add the dairy the caramelisation of that fat smells so incredibly creamy sweet, it’s hypnotic. Second is croissant baking, its just comforting and classic and makes you feel at home. And number one has to be our homemade hazelnut praline, that caramelised hazelnut smell is mouthwatering, and it tastes as good as it smells, the kind of thing you can’t not try once you’ve smelled it. But when I come home, the only thing my wife says is ‘you smell of butter!’

 

Why are macarons the only patisserie that come in different colours? Why can’t we have blue croissants?

Because you bake croissants for longer at a higher temperature, even if you coloured it the colour would fade; everything in the oven that long and at that temperature would just end up brown anyway. But even macarons were originally only three colours, they were pretty boring; vanilla buttercream white, chocolate ganache brown, and raspberry jam red. But then Pierre Herme came along and decided we could do a lot better than that. He started experimenting with ingredients and all the colours we recognise came out of the new flavours. But who knows, maybe one day someone will perfect the technique you need for a blue croissant, baking is a science after all, you just need the right formula. Never say never.

 

How was your experience competing in the 2025 Best Croissant UK competition, and how does it feel to officially have one of the top 10 best croissants in the country?

It was an incredible experience. Essentially we broke making croissants down into a 15 step process, and honed in on each of those steps one at a time. The competition pushed us to fine tune certain details and now our recipe is stronger than ever. And even though we didn’t take first place we were the top from the south of England. But cliché as it sounds its what the customers think and that’s always more important than a panel of judges. As long as they’re happy, we’re more than happy.

 

And what about your time on The Great British Bake Off’s The Professionals?

I loved it. It taught me not to panic, and that mental resilience is key. There was a challenge with macarons where we had to sculpt something inspired by a film. We were given James Bond, and so we made a tuxedo suit out of macarons, but at the last moment I knocked the display and half of the macarons went flying and for a moment I was fuming. But when the cameramen asked me ‘what are you going to do?’ I had a moment to breathe and then said ‘we’re going to put it back together and make it look like nothing happened’. And that’s exactly what we did. We shrunk the structure and reshaped it, and we won, because we stayed calm, we kept going, and we didn’t give up. (The other teams were pissed, they thought they’d won for sure!)

 

In a world of increasing technological automation, what motivates you to wake up so early and get busy baking while the world is still asleep? Why would you make the effort when one day a machine could just do it for you?

Well we’re lucky enough to be in a profession where it’s going to take a while, if ever, for machines to replace us. But it’s not about the end result, it really is the process. I woke up at 2:30am today not because I want to make the best pastries possible but because I want to be the best human I can possibly be. I make pastries because the effort of making them makes me, relying on a machine takes that away from me.

 

There’s been more talk recently of third spaces, somewhere that isn’t home or work. That’s why cafes are so important, it gives us a place to get away. What does it mean to you to run a long-beloved cafe in the heart of the city?

We see that a lot, people come to us to have what my wife calls ‘a European moment’. No book, no headphones. Just a coffee and maybe a couple of macarons, and they just have a moment, you know? To disconnect, recharge, maybe to reconnect, to just be present. It’s a pleasure to be a small part of that.

 

The world of patisserie is all about making sure it looks as good as it tastes. How do you find the balance between presentation and flavour and is one more important than the other?

One of my very first bosses told me once ‘if the cake looks good, people are going to come in. And if the cake tastes good, people are going to tell their friends.’ So in a way it’s reassuring because if you have either, you’ll be okay. In terms of looks, sometimes you want to overcomplicate it just to prove you can do something impressive, to see what you’re capable of. And the challenge is always exciting. And in terms of taste, once you have a baseline of good flavour established then you know the customers like it and then you can continue to be fine tuning in the background so it can always be that 1% better. Looking good and tasting good is always the goal, but if you’re really passionate then that journey of fine tuning never ends, you’re always tinkering and improving.

 

What do you see for the future between you and Babble?

More of the same is all I could ask for. This is such a special place. I come with my wife and two boys at least once a week, and while we’re ordering our food they’re playing football down by the beach. The Hove side of the seafront was crying out for something like this, and now it’s here it’s hard to remember a time before. Now if we want good coffee and gorgeous views it’s just a short walk away. So honestly, being a customer at Babble is just as exciting as being a supplier.