Products
Sweet fantasy
F
or those born before the millennium, Tik- Tok can be a challenging experience. The social media website’s high-energy blend
of puerile pranks, pouting teens and Pomera- nian dogs dressed as bumblebees is full-on, to put it mildly. But it’s worth a look, because this is where trends are born, particularly in the food world, and it seems especially in bakery. In October, Bread Ahead, a bakery in Lon-
don’s Borough Market, launched a new crème brûlée doughnut, filled with crème pâtisserie and scorched with a branding iron – yours for £4.50 a pop. By the end of the month, it had become a TikTok sensation, earning
From TikTok doughnut sensations to gourmet sandwiches, baked goods are having their moment in the spotlight, says Will Hawkes
rave reviews from key online names such as foodyfella, who posted: “The vanilla crème meets caramel is a gamechanger,” and eatingwithtod, who said it was: “one of the sexi- est doughnuts I think I’ve ever seen,” alongside millions of views from potential customers. “It has gone crazy,” says Matthew Jones,
Bread Ahead’s founder and owner. “It’s the biggest product we have ever done in the busi- ness. We just put them on the stall at Borough Market and it was like lighting the fuse on a firework. It’s been incredible.” He reports it now accounts for as much as 20% of Bread Ahead’s daily sales.
It’s far from the only baked social media
smash hit: there’s also the ‘cube croissant’ (literally a square version of the pastry) popular- ised in London by Le Deli Robuchon and now on the counter at bakeries around the globe, in a rapidly diversifying variety of forms. Both the crème brûlée doughnut and the
cube croissant testify not only to social media’s growing punch, but also to the excitement sur- rounding bakery and baked goods – the UK market is now worth an estimated £3.9b, according to the Federation of Bakers. Even at a time of shrinking domestic budgets, baked goods remain an affordable treat.
Bread Ahead’s crème brûlée doughnut
40 | The Caterer | 26 January 2024
www.thecaterer.com
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