A Turbocharged Croissant Delights (and Disturbs) Paris

All it took for the crookie to take shape was a baker looking for a diversion, his time-tested croissant recipe and a few cookies for inspiration. It took TikTok to make it go viral.

Stéphane Louvard created the crookie almost a year and a half ago when he came up with the idea of putting cookie dough into a croissant and then baking it again. But demand for his crookies has exploded in recent months after TikTok videos flaunted his creations. On one day in February, Mr. Louvard sold 2,300 of the pastries at his bakery in a bustling Paris neighborhood.

“The entire planet is talking about us. Someone told me he even made the trip from Madrid only to get a crookie — it’s crazy,” Mr. Louvard said as he prepared a baking tray of croissants, ready to be cut in half and stuffed with chocolate chip cookie dough.

The crookie — Mr. Louvard’s son Nicolas, a business school student, came up with the name — has not just taken social media by storm. It has also spread to other bakeries across 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 fusion baking has become more common in Paris and across France in recent years, with bakers embracing one trend after another, like the brookie (fusing a brownie and a cookie), the cronut and the cruffin (which marry croissants with doughnuts and muffins).

Mr. Louvard, 51, who has made his own croissants from scratch for decades, got the inspiration for the crookie one morning in October 2022, when he was preparing croissants and saw his team making cookies beside him and decided to mix them together. He continued making crookies mostly for fun during his long shifts, which start at 4 a.m. every day.