I was fascinated by Cronuts when they first launched, estatic about them when I finally got to try one for myself, and now that spark has been refueled by means of an unrelated, but hilarious food blog video (I just love Frozen)! But while contemplating the practicality of making Olaf sushi, another video caught my eye in the Youtube sidebar: “How to make Cronuts.” These Brits won me over with their Frozen wit, so I decided to give their cronut recipe a try!

Try 1: Flop. The dough didn’t rise nearly enough so I decided to cut my losses and just bake them rather than fry them. They still tasted good though, hence there was only one left when I remembered I hadn’t taken a photo of one yet!

Try 2.0: Yummy but different. The dough made for a pillowy soft donut but lacked in the croissant factor. Like Try 1, the dough hadn’t risen much by the time I needed to roll it out in the morning, so I decided to cut the final rolled out dough into thirds, stack the pieces, and roll the dough out again. The dough now had triple the number of layers and this trick really helped give me the height I was looking for.

Try 2.1: I made the dough for Try 2.0 earlier in the day and set it in the fridge to rise the rest of the day and overnight. But once again, it was 8 pm and the dough didn’t seem to be rising like it was supposed to. Rather than wait until the next morning to test my luck, I decided to start on another batch but this time take a different approach. Instead, I halved this recipe for classic croissants to make a small batch of dough and added some matcha powder for flavor. These ended up tasting really close to the real deal! I cut them into smaller sized cronuts because I didn’t have that much dough to begin with, but if I had made them larger I think they would have tasted even more like Dominique Ansel’s creation! 

Matcha Cronuts

Ingredients to Flavor Cronuts:

For the matcha pastry cream:

• 1 cup milk
• 2 egg yolks, room temperature
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp heavy cream
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp matcha powder

For the matcha glaze:

• Confectioner’s sugar
• Matcha powder
• Lemon juice
• Water

Directions:

For the matcha pastry cream:

1. Over medium heat, scald milk to just under a boil. Meanwhile, vigorously whisk together egg yolks and sugar until the mixture lightens in color. Add cornstarch and continue whisking until smooth.
2. Slowly stream scalded milk into egg mixture, whisking continuously. Pour mixture back into the saucepan. While whisking continuously, bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and cook while whisking for another minute until thick.
3. Remove from heat and whisk in heavy cream, vanilla extract, and matcha powder. To completely incorporate the matcha powder and get a silky smooth texture, blend the mixture in a small bullet type blender (an unconventional step but definitely not one to skip!). The mixture will become runnier but should firm up again in the fridge.
4. Transfer blended pastry cream into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap directly on cream. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until thickened again. Use chilled cream when ready and load into a pastry cream injector.

For the matcha glaze:

1. Bascially just mix these ingredients until you get a desired consistency and taste.

Tried them baked as well. Yummmmm ^_^