All it took to create this con man was a baker looking for a diversion, his tried-and-true croissant recipe, and some cookies for inspiration.it took Tik Tok Let it go viral.
Stéphane Louvard created this cookie about a year and a half ago when he had the idea of putting cookie dough inside a croissant and then baking it again. But demand for his con artist has surged in recent months after TikTok videos showing off his work. On one day in February, Mr. Loire sold 2,300 pastries at his bakery in a busy Paris neighborhood.
“The whole planet is talking about us. I was told that he even came all the way from Madrid just to get a con – it’s crazy,” Mr Loire said as he prepared croissants on a baking sheet to be cut into Halve and stuff with chocolate chip cookie dough.
The con man – whose name Mr Lowald’s son Nicolas, a business school student, came up with – has taken more than just social media by storm. It 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 first brought it from Austria in the late 18th century.But in recent years, fusion baking has become more common in Paris and across France, with bakers embracing one trend after another, like Brooke (a fusion of brownies and cookies), Donut and Krufen (Combine croissants with donuts and muffins).
Mr. Loire, 51, had been making croissants from scratch for decades, and one morning in October 2022, he saw his team making cookies next to him as he prepared the croissants and decided to mix them up. He continued making Hustlers during long shifts that started at 4 a.m. every day, mostly for fun.
He managed to sell a dozen or two a day, but last summer he gave up on the pastries as sales of the heavy pastries dropped as temperatures rose. The next fall, he started baking cookies again at the request of his regular customers, but sales never exceeded 30 per day.
“This is food porn,” Papuz said in the video, waving the pastry at the camera. When he bit into it, a look of joy appeared on his face.
New customers are pouring into Mr. Loir’s bakery, Maison Louvard, in central Paris. “We started doubling the volume to 600, 700 a day, but it wasn’t enough,” he recalls.
At the height of the Hustler craze, Maison Louvard had to reorganize its entire production to meet popular demand. Mr Loire said demand fell during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and as the weather warmed. But the bakery still sells about 1,000 copies a day, and tourists and locals still flock to the place.
This week, the five-star George V Hotel in Paris called the bakery to request a special delivery. “A guest wanted to bring the original conman to his room at 1am,” Mr Loire said.
Jessie Leworthy, who was visiting Paris from Devon, England, with a friend, recently took a selfie of her first bite of a cookie in front of a bakery. “We don’t know how the two different textures come together, but it’s delicious,” she said.
Still, the con man has his detractors.
“I’m choking on it right now and I wish I had a bottle of water,” said David Iemolo, a visitor from Philadelphia who said he heard about the pastry mashup from social media . “Both are great individually, but put them together, they’re probably a little too much for me.”
Comments abound on social media describing Hustlers as too greasy, too heavy or too “American.” And then there’s the price, which is €5.90 (about $6.30) for takeout – about three times the price of a typical croissant – and €7.10 for dine-in.
“That’s the price of a croissant and a biscuit,” Mr. Loire said in his defence, citing the high-quality butter, flour and chocolate he uses and the long hours of his staff.
Mr. Louvard and his team spend 36 hours creating the perfect “viennoisserie” (soft, airy interior and crispy, buttery pastry on the outside) for his croissants. The dough must rest at a certain temperature for several hours before being filled with a dollop of butter, folded, pressed, and folded again — a dozen times — to achieve the desired puffiness of the pastry.
That’s why many French bakers give up on making their own croissants, preferring to buy frozen ones instead.
“We don’t make our own croissants in France anymore,” says chef and author Jean-Marie Lanio, who regularly travels across Asia to teach people how to make the staple of French cuisine.
According to the French Bakery Federation, industrial companies account for more than 70% of the country’s total pastry production, supplying bakeries, supermarkets and cafes.
Some bakers are now hoping social media trends, like the one driving demand for dupes, can help encourage more people to make more of their own.
“It has rekindled the interest in baking pastries among the younger generation,” Mr. Ranio said.
Amaury Guichon, a pastry chef, Create your own scammer on TikTok Last month; the video was viewed nine million times. This is in stark contrast to the number of likes Mr Loward’s son received when he first posted a photo of a con man on the bakery’s website. Instagram By 2022 – he estimates there will be more than a hundred.
The scammers have appeared on bakery shelves across the city and are now even being advertised by ad agencies. Major French frozen food manufacturer As well as being marketed by a large industrial bakery chain – it has been renamed “Krukitz“.
Krukimania also spread around the world. “My followers send me messages about scammers in Sydney, Dubai, Singapore or New York,” influencer Mr Papuz said. “It’s everywhere.”
Mr Ranio first met the con man when he visited Bali two weeks ago.
Didier Chaput, who teaches at the Ferlandi cooking school, said he was pleased the scammers were putting freshly made pastries in the spotlight.
He encourages fusion baking in the classroom so students can find their own style and taste. But at the end of the day, he said, “While con men can be fun, the ultimate question is always where to find the best croissants in Paris.”
