Cronut recipe

Since the famed pastry chef Dominique Ansel invented the Cronut in 2013,I became a little bit obsessed with it.
Because I haven't had a chance to taste it and I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to taste a Cronut from the man who invented it(because I live in Portugal and the next trip on my list is not New York),I decided to make my own cronuts with my own recipe.
In case you don't know Dominique's cronut is a 3 days recipe and I must say I am not the most patient person in the world so,I simplified the recipe and I reduced the process time to 1 day.
For those of you who don't know,the cronut  is a croissant-doughnut pastry,a cross between a doughnut and a croissant.
This was my first attempt to make cronut and I was very pleased with the results.They are flaky,crispy, taste good but I'm in no way pretending these are as good as Dominique's cronuts.
Because I was 99% sure I will fail,I didn't make ganache filling.I made only some lemon glaze with lemon juice and powdered sugar.
If you are in the mood for some cronuts,and if you have patience and time see the full cronut recipe here ,or just try mine...



Serves: 6-8
Ingredients for the pastry dough :

• 400g all-purpose flour,sifted
• 150ml reduced-fat milk(room temperature)
• 15grams fresh yeast
• 40 grams granulated sugar
• 40 grams unsalted butter,melted
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 1 vanilla bean
• zest of half lemon
•  pinch of salt

For the butter block

• 250g unsalted butter(83% butterfat)

You also need:

• ring cutter
• deep -frying thermometer
• grapeseed oil as needed

DIRECTIONS:

The night before

For the pastry dough

• Put the flour in a  large bowl and set aside.
• In a small bowl combine sugar, milk ,yeast and mix until yeast dissolves.Stir in the egg,melted butter,vanilla seeds and lemon zest.
• Put the yeast mixture over the flour and with a wooden spoon mix until just combined.
• Stir in the salt.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight,at least 12 hours.

For the butter block

• Place the butter over a parchment paper.
• Cover the butter with another piece of parchment paper and with a rolling pin roll it out into 15 x 19 cm rectangle.
• Chill the butter until is ready to use.Like pastry dough,I refrigerated it overnight.

The day of

Step 1

• Remove the dough from the refrigerator.Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface.
• With the rolling pin,roll out the dough to a 30 cm square.Rotate the dough 45 degrees and place the butter in the center of the dough so that the corners of the butter rectangle are centered along the sides of the dough.
• Fold one flap of dough over the butter,so the point of the dough reaches the center of the butter.
• Repeat the process with the other flaps.Pinch the edges lightly to seal in the butter.It should look like an envelope.

Step 2

• After you sealed the butter,lightly flour the top of the dough and with the rolling pin roll out the dough to a 25 cm x 50 cm rectangle.
• Pick up one end and fold it to the center of the dough then fold the other end of the dough to the center too.
• The dough looks like an opened book.
• Now pick up one side of the dough and fold it over the other side.Now the dough looks like a closed book. 
• Wrap in plastic foil and chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.
• After this time,remove the dough from the freezer,unwrap from plastic foil and place it over a lightly floured surface and repeat the folding and chilling process 4 more times.

Cut the dough

• After you chilled the dough for the 5 th time,on a lightly floured work surface,roll out the dough to a square with about 1,5 cm thick.Using a round cutter,cut 6 doughnut
• Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and lightly dust the parchment with flour.
• Place the Cronut pastries on the pan, spacing them about 3 inches (8 cm) apart. 
• Lightly spray a piece of plastic wrap with nonstick spray and lay it on top of the pastries. Proof in a warm place until tripled in size, about 2 hours.

Fry cronut

• Because grapeseed oil is very expensive I bought a 500 ml bottle and I fried them individually in a small pan.
• Heat grapeseed oil in a small pan until it reaches 350ºF/175ºC
• The temperature of the oil is very important to the frying process. If it is too low, the pastries will be greasy; too high, the inside will be undercooked while the outside is burnt.
• Line a platter with several layers of paper towels.
• Gently place 1 cronut into the hot oil. Fry for about 90 seconds on each side, flipping once, until golden brown.Using a slotted spoon transfer to the platter lined with a paper towels. 
• Check that the oil is at right temperature (350 º F /175 º C) after each batch.If not,heap up again before frying the next batch.
• Continue the process until all of them are fried. 
• As I said,I didn't make the ganache filling because I thought my cronut recipe will fail.I coated them in sugar and I glazed them with lemon glaze made it with powdered sugar and lemon juice.
• If you want to fill them with ganache or to glaze, let them cool completely before filling or glazing.
• Ganache and glaze recipes you can find here

That's all, folks!
Enjoy!

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸺
If you make this recipe,please let me know how it turned out!
Post your version on  instagram,tag @lady.j.bakes or leave me a comment below!