Quite a few years ago the cronut took the food scene by storm. It was the literal craze from America to Australia people were trying to get their hands on it. A cronut if you’re not aware is a cross between a croissant and a doughnut (spelling correctly – right Brits?). Over last few months to a year the new “cronut” of this time is the croffle. Any guesses on what it is? It’s a cross between a croissant and a waffle. In this post we’ll discuss exactly where this trendy dessert comes from and also the best places to get it in London. And a cheeky one thrown in at the end too beyond London.
History
Believe it or not, this delicious sweet treat (or breakfast) was an invention of Irish pastry chef, Louise Lennox. It has become widely popular across the globe, with South Korea being in the forefront – where it is enjoyed as a street snack. Recently, it has entered England and you’ll find numerous places that offer this wonderful hybrid of a dish. You’ll find East Asian (Japanese and Korean) cafes and dessert spots doing it as well as the more common dessert parlours that have also popped up all over our feeds and streets of late.
Milk Train Cafe
This is the first place I actually saw doing it. Well before any of the more instagram friendly dessert parlours that have all started doing it now. They actually call it “croffsant” and you can get it on its own, in different flavours (chocolate coated) and also with toppings (ice cream etc – always changing). Unfortunately, they were out of the other chocolate flavoured ones, so we couldn’t try them. We just got the plain one on its own and it was oh so good. We wanted to try it without any ice cream or other toppings to see how it tasted. It was perfectly crispy and it felt like the perfect marriage between a croissant and waffle. This is hands down our favourite croffle in London so far. All the rest on this London list kind of lacked that fresh croissant feeling crunch. They tasted like waffles that look like croissants if that makes sense. This one hit the spot! I’d definitely want to go back and try it with their famous ice cream toppings.
Katsute 100
This one is for the matcha fans. This cute Japanese tea house does some awesome Japanese desserts and from their best sellers is their matcha croffle. You get a couple of croffles with matcha ice cream. For us, this lacked the same crunch the one above did. However, this could’ve been due to the matcha ice cream? Nonetheless, we aren’t matcha fans so we didn’t enjoy this as much. If you like matcha, I think you’ll like this though. If there was an option to change the matcha ice cream to black sesame or something (popular dessert flavour in Japan), I think I’d enjoy it more and I’d definitely go back. But I think there is only the one option here (matcha).
Heavenly Desserts
One of the most popular dessert parlours in the UK and one of the first to really go in in this market and monopolise and popularise dessert parlours. They have numerous branches around the UK and no matter where you are, it’ll be difficult for you to not find one near you. A lot of the other dessert parlours who have popped up trying to emulate their success have also introduced the croffle to their menu, but Heavenly Desserts was probably one of the first to do so (i.e. these type of dessert parlours i.e. those that do milk cakes – you know those types?). There’s 3 options: 1. Dark chocolate and pistachio; 2. Biscoff and 3. Their signature: ruby chocolate and raspberry. We got the signature one because well it is their signature, we don’t like dark chocolate and we are tired of biscoff. It looked very pretty (as you can see) and it was decent, but the white chocolate and ruby chocolate slathered over the croffles were extremely rich and sweet. So much so that it kind of made having it all a bit sickening. I’m glad we were sharing this to be honest. I guess we should’ve gone for the biscoff one?
Shibuya
The croffle here is very different to all of the above (and below). It has been caramelised using brown sugar or something making it sticky and firm in texture. Impossible to cut into (and a waffle nor a croissant should be impossible to cut into). Their toppings are delicious though and do make up for the tough texture. I do think it’s worth trying, but it certainly isn’t the best croffle in town. Make sure you check out our full Shibuya review including their famous Bingsu.
One for the northerners
If you’re not based in London and are specifically based in northern England, then I have something for you too. And I am not just including this on the list for the sake of it, I’m including it because it is hands down the best croffle we’ve had thus far. Wasabi Desserts Room in Manchester’s Chinatown is a hidden gem that offers up some amazing and interesting desserts. Hidden away literally above their main sushi restaurant sits this dessert spot. They’ve got a few options for toppings on the croffle, but I urge you to go for the one we went for! Seriously! We got the salted caramel one and boy was it good. We compiled a list of ten desserts to try in Chinatown Manchester and this was easily our favourite. This also tops the list of croffles we’ve tried. It had it all. The taste of the croissant and waffle and the crunchy texture along with the salted caramel… mmmm. So good!
