A crompouce is a mixture between a

croissant A croissant (, ) is a French cuisine, French pastry in a crescent shape made from a laminated yeast dough similar to puff pastry. It is a buttery, flaky, ''viennoiserie'' pastry inspired by the shape of the Austrian cuisine, Austrian ''Kifli, ...

and a

tompouce A tompoes or tompouce is a pastry in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the local variety of the mille-feuille or Napoleon, introduced by an Amsterdam pastry baker and named after Admiraal Tom Pouce, the stage name of the Frisian dwarf Jan Hannem ...

that became a hit on social media platforms in 2023, in addition to being registered as a brand name. Croissant dough is used instead of puff pastry. The croissant is cut open and filled with pastry cream and topped with a layer of pink icing. The disadvantage of croissant dough, however, is that the dough is softer, making the cream more likely to leak through.

History

The delicacy in its current form and under the name crompouce was created by

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

-based Bammetje Bakery in 2020. After the crompouce by

Katwijk Katwijk () is a coastal municipality and town in the province of South Holland, which is situated in the mid-western part of the Netherlands. The Oude Rijn (Utrecht and South Holland), Oude Rijn ("Old Rhine") river flows through the town and i ...

-based Bakker van Maanen became a craze on social media platform

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

in 2023, bakeries across the Netherlands started selling the product. The hype of the crompouce was succeeded by that of the ''sûkerpoes'' from Friesland: two slices of sugar bread, with cream in between and the top slice of bread dipped in pink chocolate.

Similar products

A so-called ''roze flap'' has been baked in the province of

Zeeland Zeeland (; ), historically known in English by the Endonym and exonym, exonym Zealand, is the westernmost and least populous province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the southwest of the country, borders North Brabant to the east ...

since around 1993. The crompouce shows strong similarities to this delicacy. However, a ''roze flap'' is made of puff pastry instead of croissant dough and has a slightly different shape (triangular). Cream-filled croissants were sold at Bakkerij de Leeuw in

Zegveld Zegveld is a village in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is a part of the municipality of Woerden and lies about 5 km northwest of Woerden. In 2001 the town of Zegveld had 1,576 inhabitants. The built-up area of the town was 0.21 km2, a ...

for a while around 2003. The crompouce also shows strong similarities with this, only the bakery did not use pink glaze.

Reception

The crompouce was named ''treat of the year 2023'' by Kek Mama magazine. On 15 November 2023, the original maker criticised other makers, such as supermarkets, which she said had copied the crompouce. She took legal action for this. Following these legal actions against companies such as

Albert Heijn Albert Heijn (), often abbreviated to AH () and informally to Appie (), is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands with a market share of 37.7% in 2024. It was founded in 1887, and has been part of Ahold Delhaize since 2016. History Th ...

, one of the supermarkets that sells crompouces, the crompouce has been renamed Tompouce Croissant in some stores. The creator does not have a patent on the product, but does have a patent on the brand name crompouce. According to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland), a patent on the product not possible because it is not a technical innovation. Although the name is phonetically the same as the Breton word ''krampouezh'' (

crêpe A crêpe or crepe ( or , , ) is a dish made from unleavened batter or dough that is cooked on a frying pan or a griddle. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served ...

s or pancakes), there is no connection between the two words.

References

{{Reflist Dutch pastries Food and drink introduced in 2020