The cronut has landed!

KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 - Cronuts, crodos, dossants... no matter what you call them, these hybrid deep-fried pastries are taking the world by storm.

First introduced on May 10 at New York’s Dominique Ansel Bakery, there are still two-hour queues outside the Manhattan bakery. The cronuts are usually sold out within an hour.

The American sensation is a love child of a croissant and a doughnut, with crispy buttery flaky layers filled with cream.

With demand far exceeding supply (customers are limited to only two cronuts per day), the black market was charging US$40 (RM127) per cronut at one point; a hefty eight times its original price.

Unsurprisingly, social media frenzy resulted in cronuts going viral, spawning duplicates all over the world from Sydney to Singapore where Da Paolo Gastronomia recently unveiled their own “crodos.”

In Sydney, celebrity baker Adriano Zumbo interprets the cronuts as zonuts.

The croissant and doughnut halfbreed waiting to be filled with cream.

Over here in Kuala Lumpur, Huen Su Yin who runs cake shops, Delectable by Su and Delectable Treats, was piqued by all the cronut hype. “I was curious about its taste,” she adds.

The self-confessed croissant lover unveiled her own version, known as Delectable Donuts, on July 3 to eager dessert aficionados.

You get all kinds of names from frissants to dossants in a bid to overcome copyright issues.

Ansel smartly trademarked the name “cronut” in the United States of America to discourage copycat bakers but there’s no abating the craze for the deep-fried pastries.

Huen prefers to name her version Delectable Donuts and give it an interesting spin on their flavour combinations.

Homemade caramel is drizzled on top of the cronut (left). Once the cronuts are cool, pastry cream is delicately piped between its layers (right).

This includes her personal favourite, the Kaya Coconut. The pastry, filled to the brim with pandan kaya and topped with coconut flakes, uses a tried and tested Malaysian flavour combination.

Originally, she experimented with a cinnamon sugar version. Eventually it was abandoned since it gave the pastry a messy unkempt appearance.

From taste tests, she noted that fruits, cream and even kaya worked well to mask the greasy taste. Hence, her Lemon Strawberry balances the flavour in the form of fresh strawberries and strawberry coulis, with a tangy lemon infused pastry cream.

A favourite of her taste testers was the Caramel Praline with its contrast of textures from the crunchy mixed nut praline, made in-house from a mix of almonds, hazelnuts, macadamias and pistachios.

Since she read about cronuts on the news, Huen has been testing out the recipe more than 10 times, for a whole week to perfect it. “It is not difficult and there is no magic in making this,” she explains.

Huen Su Yin with her version of the cronuts known as Delectable Donuts.

According to Huen, you need to make croissant dough, cut it into a doughnut shape and fry it.
What is important is using the right oil. In her case, it’s sunflower oil for its high temperature. “You also need to constantly change the oil or there’ll be an unpleasant taste,” she says.

The original cronut in Ansel’s bakery goes through a three-step flavouring part once the pastries are deep fried – rolled in sugar, filled with cream and topped with glaze.

Huen prefers to only fill the pastries with cream or kaya to keep down the level of sweetness.

Once they are filled, the fragile flaky pastries have a short shelf life. “It remains crispy for about 6-8 hours,” she says after testing various batches.

Huen, who intends to just sell small batches for a limited period, admits the hindrance is the tedious making process. According to her, it involves many steps from proofing the dough, deep-frying the pastries, cooling and then filling each delicate pastry.

There’s even an art to eating the cronut. “Hold it like a burger and bite into it to get the crunchy layers on top,” she explains.

You tend to lose that flaky crunchy sensation if you slice it into small pieces and eat it daintily.

Unlike normal doughnuts, the cronuts contain multiple layers within.

Huen is quick to admit that she will not be surprised if other bakeries around the Klang Valley pick up the worldwide fad. Judging from the BIG Group’s Facebook page on July 1 that highlighted it as a coming soon, the arrival of the cronut fad is definitely imminent.

Delectable Donuts are available at Delectable Treats, LG K25B (In front of Cold Storage), The Gardens Mall until July 31, from 12pm onwards in limited quantities for RM10 each.

* This story was first published in the print edition of The Malay Mail, July 4 2013.