From cookie butter to cronuts: The irresistible sweetness of food crazes

No one’s a food Nostradamus to be able to predict which food craze will spread like wildfire, but any sensible food entrepreneur will tell you that when it comes to Filipinos, something sweet almost always does the trick. 

 

It’s our fondness for sweets that has catapulted pearl shakes to the biggest food fad of 1999, the success of which was mimicked by the indomitable milk tea of 2011. Do not forget the mushrooming of coffee shops a la Starbucks, which started in 1997, and, as you can see (in every corner of Metro Manila), has managed to survive the two-year fad curse. 

 

Perhaps the sweet-tooth theory is just half of the package, for Filipinos are known to be “usi” or “usisero” (you know when there’s an accident on EDSA, and people actually step out of their vehicles to know what happened, causing worse traffic?). Create a commotion and the crowd will flock like bees. Bring something new and out-of-the-box or at the least, a twist to an old product, and your food business will rake in money like blockbuster success.     

 

After last year’s J.Co Donuts is a whole slew of new and sweet food crazes that have been either popping up all over the metro, or have been trending in various social networks. Well, what’s a food craze without its delicious inconveniences: long queues, crowds and limited supplies? It’s food that makes us go the extra mile, wait for hours on end, pay more, buy and eat like there’s no tomorrow. It’s exactly that: It makes us crazy and that, my friends, makes it all the more delectable.

 

The curious case of the cookie butter

 

Forget Skippy’s and Nutella for the meantime. ‘Tis the year of the cookie butter, under the brand name Speculoos, which is as enigmatic and puzzling as what it is called. Like a spell straight from the magical world of Hogwarts, jars of this spiced shortcrust biscuit spread disappear as quickly as it is flown into Philippine territory.

 

In fact, talks abound that Trader Joe's, its exclusive distributor in the US, had to limit the number of jars sold every day. This, of course, trickled down to Manila, where you had to book reservations for jars of Speculoos in Blue Kitchen and wait for at least three months! Even the price has tripled from P165 to P450 to P550 per jar. Crazy, right?

But is it worth the craziness? All signs point to yes.

Try Krispy Kreme’s dark chocolate and white chocolate cookie butter donuts. The serving of cookie butter might be less than a spoonful, but sacrifices must be made in the name of deliciousness. 

 

You can also get your fix of cookie butter in J Cuppacakes, which is expensive at P90 a piece. But it’s oozing with cookie butter, so I recommend you eat slowly and relish every morsel. Bono Gelato offers a delicious Speculoos Belgian cookie butter flavor, its texture made interesting by the crunchy bits of the spicy biscuit in it. Pancake House managed to snag a piece of the biscuit with its limited edition designer Speculoos pancakes, which lasted for only a month. I hope they put it back though; that is, if they can find some cookie butter in the black market. 

Whopping lines for a bite of waffles

 

Many have tried; few have succeeded. The franchising game is a tricky one, with one food cart after another eventually folding.

 

Yet, the Famous Belgian Waffles, which was started by a local franchising company last November 2012, now has more than 40 outlets nationwide. And as made evident by customers who line up the stalls, the famous waffles have actually lived up to its name.

 

Its main attraction: freshly prepared thin waffles that are crunchy on the outside, with a plethora of choices for the fillings inside: banana peanut butter, banana hazelnut and blueberry cream cheese among the most interesting ones. Plus points for adding coffee and hot chocolate to the food cart’s menu. 

The wafting scent of the dough, with the butter and the vanilla custard powder, lures any hungry passerby that relents to the long lines. Do not take your sweet time eating the waffle though. It becomes cold right away, which ruins the crunch. 

 

Cronuts, croclairs, crookie, cro – what? 

 

With a name that might have come straight from a science fiction movie (imagine a weird planet or species), what could go wrong with a cronut?

 

Word has it that Wildflour Bakery and Café, which was the first bakery to sell the hybrid doughnut croissant pastry in Manila, has limited sales to only two pieces per person. I’ve never heard of anything more absurd! 

 

That and the long queues are reasons enough to troop to Wildflour's Fort Bonifacio and The Podium outlets. However, I only managed to try Dunkin' Donuts and Le Coeur de France’s cronuts. 

Dunkin' Donuts' was too dry and I found it wasn’t worth the calories I’ll gain. Le Coeur’s cronuts, which it calls “croughnuts,” though smaller compared to Wildflour’s, were soft and they melt in your mouth. Dip them in coffee or hot chocolate on a dark, rainy day to wash the blues away.

 

Like cookie butter, cronut is a food craze from the US, which eventually reached our shores. Manila is mimicking Manhattan’s cronut craze, which eventually morphed into croclairs (cronut eclairs) and crookie (cronut cookie). Who knows where this is going to lead? Food entrepreneurs might be conniving in their labs right now, experimenting with ingredients to come up with a new “cro” or something like that. 

 

Crazy times in the name of food are indeed ahead, which call for a tasty anticipation of an over-eager market waiting for the next new and big thing in food. Until then, we muster our patience and line up for our fill of cookie butter, Belgian waffles, and cronuts. —KG, GMA News