Pain au lait, pistolet… pistolait ?

Small “bum shaped” rolls of milk bread (pain au lait) are called pistolets in France. Why ? That’s convenient in the shop to give this shape to milk rolls, and a perfect round shape to plain rolls. But has the name a relation with the gun ? I thought that was related to pistoles that were a type of coins hundreds years ago. Small and rounds, like coins ? Or did they cost one “pistole” ? But why are they split in the middle ? It seems a type of plums is also called “pistole”. I won’t give you the answer because I don’t know.

The dough is made with milk, they are washed with milk…

And “cut”…

They are extremely soft. That’s halfway between bread and brioche. As a kid, I was eating them like cake.