ZAP’S FACTS!
ORIGINS

Croissants are originally from Austria, not France.

The famous flaky crescent pastry was created in Vienna and only travelled to France a century later.

2 min read
Croissants are originally from Austria, not France.
THE FULL STORY

The crescent-shaped pastry you might think of as the symbol of France was actually invented in Austria. Vienna had a pastry called the kipferl - a small crescent-shaped roll - for at least 800 years. One popular legend claims it was created in 1683 to celebrate Vienna’s victory over an Ottoman army, with the crescent shape mocking the crescent on the Ottoman flag.

The kipferl travelled to France in the 1830s, when an Austrian named August Zang opened a “Viennese bakery” in Paris. Parisians fell in love with his crescent-shaped rolls. French bakers copied them and gradually changed the recipe, using a special “laminated” dough - butter folded into the dough hundreds of times to make those flaky layers.

The new buttery French version was so different from the original kipferl that it became its own thing: the croissant. Today croissants are a French breakfast classic, but every time you bite into one you’re tasting an Austrian tradition with a French makeover.

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