A croissant for the gods
Meet the Xuxo, Spain's cream-filled answer to the croissant
My friends, today I’m excited to share with you one of the most amazing pastries ever created by humans. It’s called a xuxo (say “choo-cho”—sometimes we spell it xuixo) and it is seriously one of the things that I imagine the gods eat for dessert…or breakfast…or with coffee.
Now I’m sure I’ve told you many times before that I’m not really a sweets guy…but a xuxo warm from the fryer, filled with creamy sweet crema Catalana? That’s something that I could never say no to.
This incredible pastry was invented in the 1920s in the Catalonian city of Girona. There is a legend that a famous acrobat fell in love with a pastry chef’s daughter. The acrobat and the daughter were hiding in the bakery together to stay out of the pastry chef’s sight…when the acrobat sneezed (“aaaachoo-cho!”) and gave himself away! The acrobat, to make up to the girl’s father, gifted the pastry chef the recipe for xuxos…and promised to marry his daughter.
Okay, so maybe that’s a stretch, but I think it’s a pretty good story. Better than the story behind the Cronut, at least!
I told you a few weeks ago about a very famous version in Barcelona from Bar Pinotoxo, and we have versions at Mercado Little Spain in New York and The Bazaar in DC. They start with laminated dough which is then fried, baked, and filled with citrus- and spice-infused crema Catalana, a simple Catalan custard. At Mercado, we’ve also created a new dessert, the xuxo helado—half a xuxo filled with soft serve—which got some nice coverage recently in the New York Times!
To make xuxos at home, it’s actually pretty simple. There’s no need to make your own laminated pastry dough…it’s easier to buy pre-made frozen croissants. If you make the recipe, you may have leftover crema Catalana after filling your xuxos…this is not a problem, people! Use it for everything, put it on citrus, serve it with berries, put some on ice cream, or eat it straight out of the bowl! You can also fill your xuxos with whipped cream, ice cream, nutella…or really anything you can imagine.
Xuxos
Makes 12 xuxos
Prep time: 2 to 3 hours (including chilling)
For the crema Catalana: