Copycat Cronut Recipes For Your Croissant-Doughnut Fix

Have you heard of Cronuts®? It’s the resulting pastry love-child from a croissant-doughnut hug.

Hello, lover.

They were first introduced by the Dominique Ansel Bakery in NYC last year and people have been going crazy for them ever since. Due to limited availability since they are only sold from Chef Dominique’s bakery and only a couple hundred are made each day, a black-doughnut market emerged where one Cronut could set you back $100, no joke!

As Chef Dominique explains, his Cronut is not just a matter of deep-frying croissant dough. He, of course, does not give away the recipe, but tells us that it is made with a proofed laminated dough (lots of layers) that is then shaped, fried in grapeseed oil; then rolled in sugar, filled with cream and topped with glaze. Grab a tissue, your mouth is watering.

Copycat Cronut Recipes

Although some bakeries have attempted, no one else is able to sell a Cronut® by that name because it is trademarked. There are, however, Crullants, Zonuts, Frissants, Doughssants and Dosants, Kronuts and the like being sold.

I have seen a few recipes floating around the web trying to imitate a Cronut. Here are a few versions.

The Closest Homemade Cronut Recipe

These two mates with accompanying accents from Sorted Food has one of the closest copycat Cronut recipes I could find. You can get the complete recipe here, but for those who do not use metric you’ll have to do some conversions.

Cronuts Made From Croissant Dough

Joy, from The Cooking of Joy, cut doughnuts from her homemade croissant dough and deep fried it to get this result:

This seems like a pretty good attempt although it looks more crispy in texture with less doughnut dough in between the layers than the original. More like Cro without the nut. Nonetheless, I bet it is still tasty.

Quick and Easy Cronut Recipe

This is probably the quickest version of a Cronut recipe, although I would never try it myself. It uses canned crescent dinner rolls and store-bought vanilla pudding.

Have you had the pleasure of eating an original Cronut®? Was it all you every dreamed of and more? Or have you or will you attempt to make your own Cronuts? Share with us what has worked or what hasn’t in the comments below.