Chilli Caramel Croissant

Croissant is one of the most quintessentially French things that are actually French that we Americans enjoy almost as our own.

What makes a croissant truly authentic, like how it is in France, I think, is the texture. I’ve had plenty of bad croissants which are basically hollow, dry bread in a crescent shape. The best example of this is the kind of you buy at Costco.

The ideal croissant to me has a crispy outer layer that crumbles as I bite into the chewy, thin layers of buttery pastry. Only the outer shell is crackly. The interior is like sheets of edible moist tissue. The inner flesh of the croissant is rather resilient even if it’s diaphanous because it’s been drenched and baked in butter.

The best croissant I ever had in LA is at The Backdoor Bakery which used to be in Silverlake but it’s now located in Sunland. A big move from the LA hipster capital to a gentrifying suburb.

So much of what is pleasurable is when something possesses synesthetic and/or antithetic quality.

The Backdoor Bakery’s signature croissant is the chilli caramel. It’s not gooey caramel but more like thin brittle with chilli flakes you can actually see embedded. The flavor is unique because it’s a mix of the warming sensation with sweetness. Added to this, the crunch of the croissant “shell” that’s so satisfying to the teeth and the ear, as well as the soft stratum that resists yet melts in my mouth as I munch.

I totally felt like the crazy old lady who likes squishing food in the film Tampopo when I was making the vid for the sound effect.