It has gone from being that caramel-flavored cookie that was served next to coffee—it resists in some bars—to becoming a new flavor that is everywhere. Businesses of all kinds have turned the Lotus cookie into a delicious filling for croissants and cakes, a novel flavor for ice cream and even a supermarket cream liqueur. The history of this cookie, which has a touch of cinnamon, began in 1932 in a Belgian bakery in Lembeke, where Jan Boone rounded out a recipe in the style speculoos (a traditional spiced Christmas cookie) and had the wonderful idea of wrapping it individually. That detail, which might seem trivial, was the trigger for bars to start serving it with coffee, and in this way its peculiar flavor spread to the whole world.
Since 2021, pastry chef Jon García, who has two JonCake establishments in Barcelona (29 Assaonadors Street and 42 Gelabert Street) has been making one of his famous cheesecakes with Lotus flavor. “It reminds me of the moment of the cut and the cookie,” he notes, thinking about that very specific flavor that he had in mind when he started testing a cake to accompany the coffee, thinking about his wife, who doesn't like cheese. . “This flavor is at its peak now, I've even seen it on hamburgers, but this puts me back,” Jon confesses, referring to the number of recipe videos that circulate on social networks.
The result of your cheesecake from Lotus is a very fine cake that tastes above all like a cookie—with that touch of caramel and cinnamon—and coffee, which carries the good taste of the beans roasted by Tornado Coffee Roasters. The base is made with the same cookie and the preparation also includes Lotus cream, one of the most recent products that the brand has released, comparable to a peanut or chocolate spread. In the Barcelona location on Gelabert Street, with a tasting space, it is always available and combines very well with hot chocolate or coffee. Their aromatic profiles complement each other because the caramelized cookie enhances the flavor of the coffee. “I don't know if it will be as successful as the Oreo, but we are on our way,” Jon believes.
It has also been made a regular flavor by Abel Bravo, from the Glea bakery in Murcia (Barrionuevo Street, 4), who explains that “the Lotus cookie combines very well with many other ingredients in the bakery.” On his counter there are always abelicos, a type of flaky pastry invented by him together with Raúl Bernal from the Lapaca pastry shop in Huesca, among which there is no shortage of Belgian cookie flavor. The abelicos —a name in homage to his grandfather who called him that— are made with a puff pastry dough that is shaped into a square with a mold, and toasted with butter and sugar, before being coated with some flavor. “They are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, somewhat reminiscent of a waffle,” says Bravo. The Lotus one has two creams on top, one of the famous cookie and another of caramel, all crowned with a Lotus.
“The fat, sugar and spices combine very well with caramel and flaky pastries,” explains Bravo, who also makes other products with this flavor, such as muffins, cookies either brownies. “We take advantage of the industry's powerful marketing to integrate it into our 100% artisan pastry shop,” he concludes, remembering that the abelicos have spread to other Spanish pastry shops “and even Japan, London or Portugal.” In addition to Lapaca, another workshop that makes them is Sukar, in Valencia or Cabo Busto, Asturias, where this trendy flavor is also found.
Lotus cookie fever has also arrived in Galicia. In Amachia, with three bakeries in O Porriño and Mos, in the province of Pontevedra, they began a couple of years ago to fill croissants with the Lotus flavor, in a piece that is presented with the cookie on top, says Luís Miguel Iglesia, joint owner. to his wife Montse Fernández. Since the flavor is successful, they also tried it with the ny roll when this piece of pastries imported from the Lafayette cafeteria in New York began to expand. In addition, they make a cake with the same Lotus cream, which serves as a filling for an artisan sponge cake that is coated with milk chocolate.
To make the cream, they crush the Lotus cookie and mix it with butter and chocolate. “Cookie flavors are in fashion,” says Iglesia, who has been making artisanal bread and pastries for 20 years. Her motto is: “we make everything we sell.” She believes that the success of this flavor must be found on social networks, where homemade and professional recipes with the Lotus cookie as a cream or filling have grown exponentially. “Some of them start and the rest of us continue, there is no further explanation,” she says. Trends force us to work on demand.
With three stores and almost fifty employees, he assures that he does not want to grow more, but rather to continue making good quality doughs. In fact, he himself notices the paradox of boasting about being an artisanal bakery that then draws on a flavor that is rather industrial. But “the customer is in charge and asks for these types of flavors.” In his stores, pastries or cakes with Oreo are still the most consumed, especially for children and birthday parties, he says.
The person who receives bags of more than seven kilos with the Lotus cookies already broken is Antonio Saffioti, from Caramelicesa company that produces high-quality ice cream with 100% natural ingredients for restaurants and pastry or ice cream parlors (and with a store on-line for individuals). But the taste of this cookie is nothing new for them, says Antonio. They started making it in 2012, so that's more than ten years of Lotus ice cream.
“We make a very authentic recipe, we think a lot about each flavor and our ice creams contain a very high percentage of the main ingredient,” he says. The base of the ice cream is a cream made with milk, sugar and cream, which in addition to the Lotus cream is marbled with cookie pieces. He considers it to be just another trend, like matcha tea or red velvet. But he says that this sector is very exposed to fashions because the industrial ice cream parlor releases new flavors every year and forces others to innovate.
These trends also create opportunities. Caramelices, which is mainly dedicated to wholesale sales, has just released a 150 gram jar for the final consumer. With three flavors at the moment, tiramisu, blackberry and yuzu and toasted butter, these ice creams can be found in some stores with selected products, such as the El Corte Inglés Gourmet Club.
In fact, large chains are also no strangers to the Lotus cookie boom. Several have already taken advantage of the vein to produce products with the sweet cookie. This is the case of McDonald's, which serves Lotus McFlurry either Mercadona, which produces a liquor creamy with this flavor. Lotus Bakery is still a family business with its headquarters in Lembeke, but its projection has not stopped growing. On their website they report that each year they make 6 billion cookies that are eaten on six continents.
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