Hybrid food fads
- Hybrid mashups like cronuts, crookies, croffles, and cragels are trending across social feeds right now. (x.com) - These hybrid items have been the focus of multiple viral posts and short-form recipe clips in the last day. (x.com) - The social momentum is pushing home bakers and small shops to post DIY versions and copycat videos. (x.com)
Hybrid pastries are back on social feeds, with crookies, croffles, cragels and cronuts showing up in a fresh wave of viral clips and copycats. (france24.com) (thetakeout.com) The best-known template is still the Cronut, the croissant-doughnut pastry Dominique Ansel Bakery says it first launched in New York in May 2013. The bakery still sells monthly rotating versions and describes it as Chef Dominique Ansel’s signature hybrid. (dominiqueansel.com) The newest breakout in that lineage is the crookie, a croissant filled with cookie dough that Paris baker Stéphane Louvard created in 2022. Agence France-Presse reported that after Instagram and TikTok videos took off, Maison Louvard’s sales climbed from a regular item to about 1,000 to 1,600 crookies a day. (france24.com) Other mashups follow the same formula: the croffle combines croissant dough with a waffle iron, and the cragel combines a bagel and a croissant. The croffle was popularized in South Korea after appearing in Seoul cafes in 2018 and 2019, while The Bagel Store in Williamsburg introduced the cragel in 2013 before it drew wider attention in January 2014. (wikipedia.org) (today.com) These foods spread well online because they are easy to explain in one shot: two familiar baked goods, one portmanteau name, and a cross-section that reads clearly on camera. France 24’s report on the crookie described customers arriving with smartphones in hand, while Google Trends says its platform tracks what is spiking in search interest in real time. (france24.com) (trends.google.com) They also fit home kitchens and small bakeries because the builds are modular. Croffles can be made from prepared croissant dough in a waffle iron, and Louvard told Agence France-Presse the crookie was originally “just something for regulars” before social media turned it into a volume business. (wikipedia.org) (france24.com) The cycle is now familiar: a bakery names a mashup, a short video makes the inside texture the selling point, and imitators appear across cities within weeks or months. France 24 reported crookie copycats in Brussels, New York, Tel Aviv and Singapore, echoing the earlier Cronut queues and the global spread of croffles. (france24.com) (dominiqueansel.com) (wikipedia.org) That helps explain why the latest burst of posts is landing on names people partly know already. The products are new enough to feel fresh, but established enough that bakers, creators and viewers already understand the pitch the moment they hear “crookie” or “cragel.” (thetakeout.com) (today.com)
