Cookie fever: From viral TikTok ‘crookie’ to other unique flavors
With the wide array of cakes and ice cream options at our disposal, it is easy to forget about cookies. But pastry chefs and home bakers are constantly reminding us just how good these baked treats are by releasing flavors that will make us stash a pack in our bags, leave some in the car for times we find ourselves caught in a traffic jam or just want a forget-your-problem kind of snack.
Homemade by Roshan
(@homemadebyroshan) Roshan Gopaldas Samtani is popular for her Belgian Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and given how sinful they are, her new variants might become just as popular.
There’s the Ube, White Chocolate, Pili and Cashew cookie, which is hefty not in weight, but in delectable flavor (not the artificial kind). The Chocolate Chunk, Cherry and Almond Cookie combines all her personal favorites. “I like the play of flavors and textures—the bittersweet chocolate, slightly tart and chewy dried cherries and the fragrance and crunch of roasted almonds.”
She made a baked treat that will satisfy her own cravings, and we benefit from it.
Mama Pappot (@himamapappot)
Jessica Ho recently turned to baking cookies since it’s what she madly craved for on her second pregnancy.
This mother has three variants in her line. The Muddy Puddle is inspired by her niece’s wish to have rain boots so she could walk on muddy puddles. It’s a classic Belgian chocolate chip made with brown butter and topped with Maldon sea salt. To replicate the puddles, she uses chocolate discs instead of chips.
The Forager is a brown butter cookie with Belgian chocolate, walnuts, pecans, cranberries and sultanas for that added texture. The cookie is then topped with sea salt.
The Kagoshima, her personal favorite, uses matcha powder imported from Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture mixed in a brown butter cookie base and topped with Benguet strawberries, and ruby and white chocolate
The Manila Baker (@themanilabaker)
The couple behind the viral cookie brand is responsible for churning out some of the metro’s best treats, including their OG product, cornbread and among the first versions of the famous burnt Basque cheesecake. Their latest cookie, the Chocolate Walnut Caramel Crunch, is getting almost the same degree of love for delivering on both flavor and texture. Theirs features their signature cookie dough studded with dark premium chocolate,
chopped walnuts and homemade caramel clusters.
The Bald Baker (@thebaldbakerph)
“I’m a fan of anything citrusy so I try to infuse citrus flavors into my cookies,” says Cy Ynares, whose cookies have been in demand since he started making them. Among his OG flavors was an orange miso, which didn’t sell well then, but he thinks will do a lot better now given that people are more adventurous. He updates the old recipe with a brown butter orange zest base, a bit of miso to deepen the flavor, chopped candied oranges and a mix of dark and milk chocolates.
He also released one that
has his favorite fruit, mango. It’s a challenging ingredient to work with, he confesses, because “the flavor usually falls flat or it becomes too cakey because of the liquid from the fresh mangoes.” His final build for the Chocolate Mango Cookie is a brown butter, soft and chewy mango cookie made with freeze-dried mangoes, chopped Cebu dried mangoes and filled with a creamy mango cheesecake batter.
Gourmandise by Sunshine (@gourmandisebysunshine)
The crookie was born in a Parisian bakery (Boulangerie Louvard) back in December 2023 and it became an instant sweet sensation, with people doing their own version of the pastry hybrid. Among them was Sunshine Puey.
“Three people sent me a video of the original crookie in a span of two days and asked me to try it. When I did, my family and I loved it! I posted it on IG and immediately got several messages asking if they could order.”
Puey uses her original Gourmandise cookie dough which has brown butter and a combination of Swiss and local chocolate. Like the original, there’s a cookie sandwiched between two pieces of cut croissant and another cookie on top.
This favorite forget-your-problem snack gets creative treatment from home bakers and pastry chefs
Nono’s (@nonos.ph)
This restaurant café also recently released their own interpretation of the TikTok-famous crookie pastry. There’s the chocolate chip variant, which is similar to the original one, and one that curiously combines the flaky croissant with another hybrid—the brownie cookie. The result is a delicious fusion of laminated pastry sweetened by the cookie. To enjoy the product, Nono’s advises to place them in a preheated oven for 2-3 minutes to activate their buttery goodness.