All it took for the cookie to take shape was a baker looking for a diversion, his tried-and-true croissant recipe and a few cookies for inspiration. It took Tic Tac so that it goes viral.
Stéphane Louvard created the croookie almost a year and a half ago when he had the idea of putting cookie dough in a croissant and then rebaking it. But demand for his scammers has exploded in recent months after TikTok videos featured his creations. One day in February, Mr. Louvard sold 2,300 pastries at his bakery in a bustling neighborhood of Paris.
“The whole planet is talking about us. Someone told me he even traveled from Madrid just to buy a cookie, it’s crazy,” Mr. Louvard said as he prepared a plate of croissants, ready to be cut in half and stuffed with chocolate chip cookie dough.
The thief – Mr. Louvard’s son Nicolas, a business school student, came up with this name – didn’t just take social media by storm. It has also spread to other bakeries in France and around the world.
The croissant has long been a favorite in the French capital: legend has it that Marie Antoinette imported it from Austria in the late 18th century. But fusion baking has become more common in Paris and across France in recent years, with bakers adopting one trend after another, as Brookie (merging a brownie and a cookie), the cronut and the cruffin (which combine croissants with donuts and muffins).
Mr Louvard, 51, who has been making his own croissants for decades, got the inspiration for the little thief one morning in October 2022, while he was baking croissants and saw his team baking biscuits next to him and decided to mix them. He continued making cookies, mostly for fun, during his long work days, which start at 4 a.m. every day.
He managed to sell a dozen or two a day, then abandoned them last summer when temperatures rose and sales of heavy pastries declined. The following fall, he began baking cookies again at the request of regulars, but sales never exceeded 30 per day.
“It’s literally food porn,” Mr. Papz said in his video, holding up the pastry in front of the camera. As he bites into it, a look of pleasure appears on his face.
New customers flocked to Maison Louvard, Mr. Louvard’s bakery in the center of Paris. “We started to double the quantities, we reached 600, 700 pieces per day, but it was never enough,” he remembers.
At the height of the croookie frenzy, Maison Louvard had to reorganize its entire production to satisfy the crowds. Mr Louvard said demand had fallen a bit during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and as the weather warmed. But the bakery still sells about 1,000 a day, and tourists and locals continue to flock to try them.
This week, the five-star George V Hotel in Paris called the bakery for a special delivery. “A guest wanted the original cookie in his room at 1 a.m.,” Mr. Louvard said.
Jessie Leworthy, who was visiting Paris from Devon, England, with a friend, recently took a selfie of her first bite of cookie at the bakery entrance. “We weren’t sure how these two different textures were going to come together, but it’s delicious,” she said.
However, the thug has his detractors.
“I’m choking right now, I wish I had a bottle of water,” said David Iemolo, a tourist from Philadelphia, who said he learned about the pastry mash on social media. “Both individually are great; Put them together, you’re probably going too far for me.
On social media, comments abound describing croookies as too fat, too heavy or too “American”. There is also the price, 5.90 euros (about $6.30) – or about three times that of a classic croissant – to take away, and 7.10 euros to eat in.
“It’s the price of a croissant added to that of a biscuit,” Mr. Louvard said in his defense, citing the high quality of the butter, flour and chocolate he uses and the long hours of work of its staff.
Creating the perfect “viennoiserie” – a soft and airy pastry on the inside, crisp and buttery on the outside – for his croissants takes Mr. Louvard and his team 36 hours. The dough must sit at a certain temperature for hours before being filled with a large piece of butter, folded, pressed, folded — a dozen times — to achieve the desired pastry layer.
This is why many French bakers have given up making their own croissants, preferring to buy them frozen.
“In France, we no longer make our own croissants,” said chef and author Jean-Marie Lanio, who regularly travels across Asia teaching people how to make the staple of French cuisine.
According to the French Bakery Federation, industrial companies account for more than 70 percent of the country’s total pastry production, supplying bakeries, supermarkets and cafes.
Some bakers are now hoping that social media trends, like the one driving demand for the cookie, could encourage more people to make more of the items themselves.
“It’s giving the younger generation a renewed appetite for baking,” Mr Lanio said.
Amaury Guichon, pastry chef, created their own cookie on TikTok last month; the video has been viewed nine million times. It was a stunning contrast to the number of likes Mr. Louvard’s son received when he first posted a photo of a cookie on the bakery’s screen. Instagram in 2022 – a little over a hundred, he estimates.
The scammers have appeared on the shelves of the city’s bakeries and are now even advertised by Leading French manufacturer of frozen foods as well as sold by a large industrial bakery chain – where it was renamed “crook.”
Croookie mania has also spread around the world. “My followers send me messages about thugs in Sydney, Dubai, Singapore or New York,” said Mr Papz, the influencer. “It’s everywhere.”
Mr Lanio himself was first introduced to the thief during a visit to Bali two weeks ago.
Didier Chaput, who teaches at the Ferrandi cooking school, said he was happy that the scammers had highlighted freshly made pastries.
He encourages fusion baking in the classroom so his students can find their own styles and tastes. But ultimately, he says, “while thugs can be entertaining, the ultimate question is always where to find the best croissant in Paris.”
