Cafe W & Bakery / Dessert

Queens Bakery Cafe W Sells Hit Onigiri Croissants | Eater NY

"Earlier this year I learned that John Lee, the owner of Cafe W, asked his bakers to create an “onioissant” (also called cronigiri by some) inspired by versions in Singapore, South Korea, and Australia; to qualify it had to have three curved points like onigiri while keeping the flaky texture of French pastry. It took over eight weeks to perfect—shape problems were secondary to dough issues—and, as manager Sara Kim explained, “We spent lots of time to determine the precise number of layers and the optimal thickness of the dough,” since it needed to be pliable enough to form a triangle but sturdy enough to hold fillings such as mayonnaise and roe. In May they added the onioissant to the menu: it has a crisp, buttery crust with an ornamental strip of seaweed wrapped around the bottom, and the interior is soft and denser than a typical croissant. They sell about 1,600 of the $6.50 pastries each week; each batch takes over 11 hours to make (dough is rolled in the evening and shaped with a mold in the morning), and the onioissants are filled with one of two flavors—chive bacon cream cheese or mayonnaise with roe—then set out for sale in the morning with more baked throughout the day. On weekends the croissants sell out in a few hours, and if you miss them the bakery’s other experiment is the “crone,” a croissant ice cream cone for soft serve that was added last summer." - Luke Fortney