GBP
Cupcakes have been big news for a long time now. Small, delicate, feminine and just a little bit twee, the cupcake is everywhere. No baby shower, high tea or wedding reception was complete without an array of pastel-iced little cakes.
But the world of food is fickle, and it seems that we have finally had enough of cupcakes. Underneath their beautiful, pastel exterior, after all, is just another fairly bland piece of cake. By early 2013, the tide had turned, and what was once fresh and exciting was, definitely, as stale as last week's baking.
Enter Dominique Ansel and the Cronut. The Cronut is a doughnut-croissant hybrid, launched on 10 May 2013 and trademarked by the Dominique Ansel bakery. Each Cronut is made from a proprietary croissant-like dough, proofed, and fried. Once cooked, each Cronut is rolled in sugar, filled with cream and glazed. Nobody is pretending that these tempting little treats are ideal for your diet, but they are certainly delicious. The croissant dough is light and flaky. When you pull apart a Cronut, instead of being greeted with the shower of crumbs that characterise a cupcake, you see this.
And because the sugar, glaze and cream can all be flavoured, the possibilities for ever-more-exotic combinations for cronut's are endless.
Ansel wanted to keep his new creation exclusive, and the bakery decided to strictly limit how many Cronuts were baked per day - 200 to 250 - and also how many could be purchased per person. The general public responded exactly as hoped, and the Cronut became an instant craze. A Cronut 'black market' saw original Cronuts re-selling for as much as $40 each.
Predictably, bakers responded with another form of flattery; by spawning imitations.
Technically, Cronut is a trademarked name, but while some imitations try for a different name ('do sant' is common) it has already passed into popular speech as a generic term for a doughnut/croissant hybrid. Cronuts can be found all over the world, in flavours as diverse as peanut-caramel and dulce de leche.
Miniature versions, Oreo-stuffed versions, chocolate-covered versions; it seems as if there isn't a twist left that hasn't been taken by an enterprising bakery out there somewhere.
Is the Cronut all it's cracked up to be? If you like deep fried treats, it can't be beaten. Sophisticated, light, and delicious, a freshly-baked Cronut is a genuine new player on the baked treat market
And because the sugar, glaze and cream can all be flavoured, the possibilities for ever-more-exotic combinations for cronut's are endless.
Ansel wanted to keep his new creation exclusive, and the bakery decided to strictly limit how many Cronuts were baked per day - 200 to 250 - and also how many could be purchased per person. The general public responded exactly as hoped, and the Cronut became an instant craze. A Cronut 'black market' saw original Cronuts re-selling for as much as $40 each.
Predictably, bakers responded with another form of flattery; by spawning imitations.
Technically, Cronut is a trademarked name, but while some imitations try for a different name ('do sant' is common) it has already passed into popular speech as a generic term for a doughnut/croissant hybrid. Cronuts can be found all over the world, in flavours as diverse as peanut-caramel and dulce de leche.
Miniature versions, Oreo-stuffed versions, chocolate-covered versions; it seems as if there isn't a twist left that hasn't been taken by an enterprising bakery out there somewhere.
Is the Cronut all it's cracked up to be? If you like deep fried treats, it can't be beaten. Sophisticated, light, and delicious, a freshly-baked Cronut is a genuine new player on the baked treat market