Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately: this is not, by any reasonable definition, cooking. There is no oven involved. There is no whisking, no measuring, no moment of anxious peering through a glass door wondering if something has risen correctly. What you are about to make involves precisely two ingredients, a small act of minor pastry surgery, and roughly ninety seconds of your life. Calling it a recipe is, frankly, generous.

And yet. TikTok has spent the past few months absolutely losing its mind over the “croissant ice cream sandwich,” a trend that’s racked up millions of views, prompted Magnum itself to jump on the bandwagon, and apparently traces its roots back to an Italian patisserie in Naples via a Thai food creator’s shio pan video that a German influencer then remixed into the version now taking over everyone’s For You page. It has, in other words, done more international travelling than most of us manage in a year, and it involves less effort than making a cup of tea.

Here’s the entire method, in full: take a croissant. Slice or snip off one of the pointed ends. Hollow out a small pocket inside with a knife. Take a chocolate-coated ice cream bar straight from the freezer and slide it in. Hold the croissant firmly, twist the wooden stick, and pull it straight out, leaving the ice cream bar sitting neatly inside its new pastry home. Eat immediately, before the whole operation collapses into a genuinely spectacular mess.

I made mine with a Connoisseur Vanilla, chocolate coated, because that’s what was sitting in my freezer and I wasn’t about to make a special trip to the shops for something I fully expected to regret. I did not regret it.

Does it actually work?

Astonishingly, yes. The genius of this whole ridiculous exercise is that the croissant isn’t just standing in as a lazy substitute for a wafer or a cookie. Its outer layers stay properly flaky and crisp, while the buttery interior soaks up just enough melting ice cream to turn almost custardy without ever going soggy. Then you get that satisfying crack of the chocolate shell, followed by cold, creamy vanilla, all wrapped in something that tastes, unmistakably, like a croissant. It’s the kind of combination that has absolutely no business working as well as it does, in the same category as putting a Tim Tam in your coffee, or the surprisingly correct decision to dip a hot chip in a Frosty Fruit.

A word of warning from those who’ve gone before me: not every ice cream bar cooperates equally. Reports suggest Magnum bars slide the stick out cleanly, while some Connoisseur varieties are more stubborn, with the chocolate shattering into pieces the moment you try to remove it. Mine held together reasonably well, but consider yourself warned that this is not a foolproof operation, and a bit of chocolate shrapnel on the bench is simply part of the experience.

Should you make it?

Look, I understand the scoffing. I did some of my own scoffing before I made it. There is something faintly absurd about grown adults filming themselves performing minor surgery on a croissant for the internet’s approval, and calling the result a “recipe” does feel like a stretch when the ingredient list is this short.

But here’s my honest assessment, delivered without a shred of irony: it’s genuinely, properly delicious, and it takes less time to make than it took you to read this article. You don’t need a special occasion, you don’t need to tell anyone you made it, and you certainly don’t need to admit how quickly you went back for a second one.

What you’ll need

1 fresh, good-quality butter croissant (a proper bakery one, not the supermarket ones dusted in what can only be described as edible chalk)
1 chocolate-coated ice cream bar of your choice, straight from the freezer (I used a Connoisseur Vanilla; Magnum reportedly slides out more cleanly if you’d rather avoid the chocolate shrapnel situation)

What to do

Slice or snip off one of the pointed ends of the croissant.

Use a butter knife to gently hollow out a pocket inside, just enough to fit your ice cream bar.

Take the ice cream bar straight from the freezer and slide it into the croissant.

Holding the croissant firmly in one hand, twist and pull the wooden stick straight out with the other.

Eat immediately, ideally outdoors, ideally without an audience judging your life choices.

Is it cooking? No. Is it worth the two minutes and the minor indignity of admitting you enjoyed it? Unquestionably yes.