The Cronut (a portmanteau of croissant and doughnut) is a pastry created and trademarked in 2013 by the French pastry chef Dominique Ansel.[1][2] It resembles a doughnut and is made from croissant-like dough filled with flavored cream and fried in grapeseed oil.
In 2013, the French bakery owner Dominique Ansel created the pastry out of dough similar to that of a croissant (a pastry that he had been more familiar with) with flavored cream inside.[3][4] It took Ansel two months to perfect the recipe.[5]
Ansel introduced the Cronut on May 10, 2013, at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York's SoHo neighborhood. That night, a blogger from Grub Street, the online restaurant blog from New York magazine, reported on the new pastry.[3][1] The post resulted in much interest and online circulation, and by the third day, a line of over 100 people had formed outside the shop to buy it.[4]
Within nine days of introducing the pastry, Ansel filed for a trademark for the name "Cronut" at the United States Patent and Trademark Office,[6] which was approved.[7][8]
After the release of the Cronut, similar products have sprung up throughout the world including some with different names such as the Kelownut,[9] Doughssant,[10] Crullant,[11] zonut,[12] and others.[13][14][15]
Dominique Ansel released an at-home Cronut recipe in his cookbook, Dominique Ansel: The Secret Recipes, in 2015, for bakers to attempt in their own homes. Like the original pastry made at Ansel's bakeries, the process takes three days.[16]
Writing for the Village Voice in May 2013, Tejal Rao proclaimed the Cronut Ansel's "masterpiece".[17] Time magazine named the Cronut one of the best inventions of 2013.[18]
