How to make your own Cronuts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 12:47:00 +0000

Fed up with cupcakes? So over macaroons? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the latest fat-laden, carb-heavy, sugar-coated craze to arrive from the United States: the Cronut.

A whatnot? Imagine a croissant, but in the shape of a doughnut, not baked but deep fried, then rolled in a generous layer of sugar. Now picture it oozing with custard and sporting a slick of icing.

However queasy-making a Cronut may sound, I’m intrigued. There must be something more to this Homer Simpson of the bakery. After all, since chef Dominique Ansel launched the Cronut at his store in New York’s SoHo district in May, there have been queues of customers willing to pay $5 (£3.35) for what is, essentially, a pushed-up custard slice, and supplies have been scarce. On the black market, Cronuts resell for 10 times the retail price.

On this side of the pond we have had to go with a bit of bakery DIY if we want to try this miracle of crisp, creamy carbohydrate, as Ansel has yet to expand his operation.

But now Daniel Doherty, the Shropshire-born chef at London’s Duck & Waffle, is a convert. His 24-hour restaurant up on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower near Liverpool Street station has started serving up its version, the “dosant” (Ansel has trademarked “Cronut”), for Sunday brunch only.

The 29-year-old is careful to point out that they are not slaves to American trends: “We’re not copying them.” And theirs are different – a croissant, rather than a doughnut shape (Doherty uses croissant dough made outside the restaurant, but to his recipe) slit lengthways and with the custard piped inside. Then there’s the sugar coating, but Doherty draws the line at icing.

Doherty cooked me one in the restaurant’s open kitchen, with views as far as Essex. One bite and I was sold: cracklingly crisp, fine croissant layers, slightly chewy within, and with an ethereally light, cool, vanilla-y custard – he mixes a classic creme pâtissière with Chantilly cream.

But I still wanted to try my hand at an Ansel-style version, so I headed back to my own kitchen. First of all, I was going to need croissant dough – Ansel’s website says the dough is “similar” to a croissant but not exactly the same. I figured “similar would do fine.

But croissant recipes revealed a two-day process involving dough, industrial quantities of butter and endless chilling and rolling. I stopped instead at the supermarket for a couple of tins of ready-made croissant dough, hoping that would do.

Happily, baking queen and winner of The Great British Bake Off Jo Wheatley reassured me that ready-made works just as well, although she personally prefers to make her own version of the Cronut using proper home-made croissant dough. I would expect nothing less.

Her top tips? Pop the shaped dough in the freezer for half an hour or so before you fry it. “It’s the chill that gives them the lift. The key to it all is to get it really cold.”

But what about that awful chip-shop smell that comes with deep-frying? “It should be OK as long as you are using fresh oil,” Wheatley said. “It’s old oil that really smells. And I did mine in the utility room with the door open. Anyway, you’re not going to be making them very often are you? You’d have a heart attack!”

In the end, I did mine on the hob, cooking them one at a time in the asparagus kettle. That sounds sacrilegious I know, but hey, the asparagus season is over and the tall, narrow pan has the perfect depth and a handy basket for retrieving the goods – plus it doesn’t require industrial quantities of oil (one litre is plenty). Any deep saucepan will serve the purpose – although a thermometer is worthwhile to get the temperature right.

And while Doherty’s dopants are unflavoured, except vanilla in the custard, Ansel’s original Cronut was rose scented – he has since branched out with lemon maple and blackberry versions. Wheatley, too, has experimented with lemon and ginger. So rosewater went into mine, both the sugar and the icing. It was a good call, in the way that flower water makes super-sweet Middle Eastern baklava taste sophisticated.

Here is my recipe. There’s nothing refined about them: squishy, sweet and crisp, they are unapologetically naughty – and really very easy to make. Go on, you know you want to.

Home-made 'Cronuts’

Serves six

½ teacup caster sugar

A few drops of rosewater

1 tin of croissant dough ½ teacup icing sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

Pink food colouring (optional)

Mix the sugar with enough rosewater to flavour it fairly strongly. Spread on a tray to dry while you get on with the 'Cronuts’.

Unroll the croissant dough on to a very lightly floured surface (too much flour will stop the layers sticking together). Fold it into three, pressing together the diagonal perforations in the dough to mend them.

Roll out the dough to three times the length and fold again, like a business letter. Roll lightly to just over 18cm x 12cm (7in x 5in). Use a 6cm (2 ½in) round cutter to cut out six circles, and a tiny cutter to cut out circles in the inside. Lay the circles, plus any trimmings, on a tray, cover with cling film and pop in the freezer for half an hour.

Heat the oil to 190C/375F. Cook the dough circles one or two at a time for three minutes on each side, until deep doughnut brown. (If you are cooking whole croissants, nine minutes each side at 160C/320F will do the trick.) Lift out and drop in the rose-scented sugar, turning until well coated. Put to one side and repeat with the rest of the circles. (You can then fry the trimmings in the same way, or bake them and use to make a croissant and butter pudding, replacing the bread, and most of the butter, with the croissant.)

Once the 'Cronuts’ are cool enough to handle, poke three deep holes in the top of each with a chopstick. Spoon the creme pâtissière (below) into a piping bag fitted with a medium nozzle and squirt it into each hole.

Mix the icing sugar with enough lemon juice and water to make a runny icing, flavouring it with rose water and adding a little pink colouring if you like. Drizzle over the top of each 'Cronut’. Eat within a couple of hours.

Creme pâtissière

200ml/7fl oz milk

1 vanilla pod

1 tbsp plain flour

1 tbsp cornflour

2 tbsp sugar

2 egg yolks

150ml/5fl oz double cream

Put the milk in a small pan. Split the vanilla pod lengthways and drop it in the pan (or use a few drops of vanilla extract.) Bring the milk to just below boiling and draw off the heat.

Meanwhile, beat the flour, cornflour, sugar and egg yolks together in a bowl. Pour over the hot milk a little at a time, whisking all the time.

Rinse out the pan and pour in the milky, eggy mix. Reheat gently, whisking all the time, until it is very thick. Cover with a piece of greaseproof paper, pressing it onto the surface of the creme pâtissière, and leave to cool.

Whip the cream until billowing and fold it into the custard. Keep in the fridge until needed.

Food Corner

How to make your own Cronuts