I spotted this when I cruised into Yahoo.com and glanced at the news headlines, as you do! As Yahoo news links sometimes expire, I have excerpted a bit of the article from USA Today.
Cream Puffs Rise to Meet New Demand
A nation of allegedly nutrition-conscious consumers has some serious explaining to do: The cream puff is making a comeback.
Two competing Japanese chains - both new to the U.S. market - are selling fresh, hot cream puffs like, ah, hot cakes. Other big names are starting to peddle cream puffs via mail order. Even Bon Appetit magazine has pegged the cream puff - a puff pastry with flavored cream filling - as the hot dessert for 2005.
"We all talk a good game, but less than 2% of us are actually eating what the Food Pyramid tells us to," says Tanya Wenman Steel, New York editor at Bon Appetit. Watch out, Krispy Kreme, she says, "cream puffs will be the next big thing."
The biggest driver: America's irrepressible sweet tooth. Helping is marketing machinery pitching the puff - now about as popular in Japan as doughnuts are here - as an American institution. Even in an era of better-for-you dining, the cream puff's clearly no cream puff.
At a handful of Manhattan locations, customers lured by the smell of fresh-baked puffs willingly wait in long lines that snake outside Beard Papa's Sweets Cafes to pay $1.45 for one of the chain's trademark vanilla cream puffs.
Each oozes about 230 calories - about 30 calories more than a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. But unlike donuts, the cream puffs are baked, not fried. The filling is a whipped-cream-and-custard combo. The company, already a success in Japan, plans to open another 20 U.S. units domestically during the next year - including in Hollywood and San Francisco.
Some stores sell 5,000 cream puffs a day, though sales here have lagged for one variety - the green tea-flavored cream puffs, admits Craig Takiguchi, executive vice president of Muginoho USA, parent company of the chain.
"The funniest thing," Takiguchi says, "is seeing shoppers who leave our store with cream and powdered sugar all over their face."
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I have tasted Bearded Papa's Cream Puffs while in HK - my brother took me to eat them - he said at first he didn't get the point of eating like a 20HKD (around RM10) cream puff but when he had his first one, he totally understood. I have also been converted to their cause. The puffs are amazing - expensive but worth every penny (although at that time, I didn't know how many calories they had!).
In HK, Beard Papa is located on the ground floor of Sogo, which is in Causeway Bay. Skip the chocolate covered ones because they don't quite work - the creme patisserie (which is the secret here - typical Yanks! Don't know the difference between whipped cream and cream patisserie) is too rich with a chocolate covered cream puff. The puffs are great hot but also very nice cold. Their Creme Horns (similar to a puff, but filled into a horizontal pastry) are also great! They do a weird Cheesecake item, which is cheesecake, sort of shaped like a ruler and which has bits of pineapple in it. Quite good but not exactly blow your mind away.
In KL, Beard Papa can be found in Jusco, 1 Utama and Midvalley. I have been observing their progress since the franchise has been brought in and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will survive. For starters, in HK and Japan, Beard Papa usually has a queue of people. But even on Saturdays, I don't see Beard Papa, either in Midvalley or Jusco, commanding a queue.
Without a doubt, the RM3.30 pricetag is what is making consumers think twice. Especially in Midvalley where there is another cream puff stall that probably retails for half the price although personally, I think the quality is not quite there. Is it Malaysians are just not ready to splurge on good quality items (a contradiction in terms given that they happily splurge for Coffee Bean coffee) or could it just be that word hasn't gotten around about how good they are? Or could it simply be that Malaysians sweet tooths prefer to be appeased by kuih or ice kacang?
In any case, only 230 calories...SIGH. Marginally more than a KK doughnut!
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