PARIS (AFP) – A bemused Paris bakery owner has been besieged by smartphone-wielding youngsters over the past year, keen to snap themselves with the latest pastry craze: the crookie.
A croissant filled with cookie dough might sound like a fistful of heart attack, but everyone knows it’s going to be tasty, even when all they’ve seen is a viral TikTok video.
The crookie was invented by Parisian pastry chef Stephane Louvard in 2022.
It was “just something for regulars”, he said, until a video by Instagram account ‘The Ultimate Guide’, which specialises in Paris restaurants, drove sales up to 150-200 per day.
Then in early 2023, TikTok influencer Johan Papz filmed himself taking a satisfying bite into one of Louvard’s crookies, and things went crazy.
“We had hundreds of people coming, most of them young women between 18- and 25-years-old, smartphones in hand to take photos with them,” Louvard told AFP in his kitchen as workers rushed to spread cookie dough into croissants.
