The secret to a crispy outside and a chewy inside lies on its special dough. (Photo by PINGGOT ZULUETA)

Seemingly an ordinary pan de sal at first glance and a mutated donut at another, a Chewy Junior puff is, like any culinary quirk, neither. The pastry oddball is a cream puff stuffed with a cream filling, generously topped with nuts, glaze, and fruit jams. It may come across as a creampuff-doughnut hybrid, but its interesting peculiarity lies in its bread, which is slightly crisp on the outside yet soft and chewy inside.       

The Chewy Junior craze started in Singapore, when founder and creator Kevin Ong accidentally mixed up two different pastry recipes and ended up with the oven-baked, cream-filled puff. It’s been selling thousands of cream puffs daily in Singapore and has branched out to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.  And now, thanks to five unassuming business partners, the much talked about puff has arrived in the Philippines.   

Island Soulfood International Corporation got the rights to franchise Chewy Junior in the Philippines with partners Irwin Riola, Paolo Gregorio, Arby Roy, Bok Barrameda, and Albert Pangcog. They were relatively unaware of the product until Barrameda, who’s based in Singapore, tried one cream puff and immediately pitched the business prospect to his partners in Manila.

“They instantly thought of the product’s potential to make it big in the Philippines, since Filipinos generally like to try something new. They talked to Kevin Ong about franchising and brought him here in Manila to do some product research and make necessary tweakings for Chewy Junior to suit the Pinoy palate. It took us over a year to arrange the business operation. We finally opened our first store in Trinoma last March,” said operations manager Doy Loyola.

And just like any newbie product in the market, the chewy cream puffs got mixed feedbacks from its early customers. Loyola adds: “Some would say the puffs are makunat and a little too messy to eat, while others love its unique texture and the fact that the filling is surprisingly not too sweet.”

The puffs are baked on the spot so it’s probably best to eat it freshly baked. There are instructions for reheating in the take-out boxes, as well as directions for the proper way of eating it – to keep the filling from oozing in all the wrong places. Also, Chewy Junior’s prized secret dough is shipped monthly from Singapore to ensure just the right crisp and chewiness in each puff.

“It’s not entirely easy to introduce a new pastry product in the country, what with the specialty doughnuts and creampuff stores scattered around the Metro. But if you believe in your product and passionately work on the operations and marketing, I think Chewy Junior will have the same success here as it had in Singapore and other Asian countries,” Loyola explained.   

Chewy Junior has four cream flavors: vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and peanut butter. These are paired off with toppings of compatible tastes; these pairings, however, cannot be customized. Each is created in such a way that the flavors of the toppings complement the sweetness of the cream filling.

Chewy Junior’s initial roster of flavor combinations include Plain Chewy, Peanut Butter Crunch, Chocolate Madness, Cheese Lover, Coffee Raisin Crunch, Almond Sweetheart, Cookies and Cream, Chocolate Almond Crunch, Apple Cheese, Blueberry Cheese, Strawberry Cheese, and our very own Cheese Ensaymada, which Ong enjoyed so much he took the recipe to Singapore and added it to his Chewy Deluxe Menu.

Each piece is sold at P39.00 and also comes in: Box of 3, P109.00; Box of 6, P209.00; and Box of 12, P399.00. More flavor combinations that await creation are coming. Satisfy your curiosity and get ‘chewified’ at Chewy Junior. Chewy Junior is located at 2F, TriNoma Mall, Quezon City.