Earlier this year I was visiting Epcot with my family and my daughter and I passed a cronut stand. We intrigued by the name and decided to order one, even though we really had no idea what it was, except it smelled absolutely amazing!
What came out was a deep fried croissant covered in cinnamon and sugar. It was so amazingly delicious my daughter and I quickly ate it before we met up with the rest of the family so we didn’t have to share.
Seriously.
Two adults shoving deep fried croissant in their mouth as they walked through the World Showcase to avoid having to share.
It was just that good.
Since then, it’s been on my list of thing I want to try to make at home. I felt the family needed a chance to taste these delicious treats and I didn’t want to be greedy. 😉
We usually do something to celebrate the last day of summer (before we start school) so I thought the best way to tell my kids summer was officially over was with plate of delicious, melt in your mouth cronuts.
It worked. They were so happy, they didn’t even care that their days of sleeping until 10:30 and staying up way too late were coming to an end. They were eating cronuts.
Here’s the really cool part. All you need is a tube of crescent rolls, oil, and a sprinkling of sugar.
Cronuts
Ingredients
- Crescent rolls
- Canola oil or any other frying oil
- Powdered sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Cinnamon
Instructions
- Heat oil in a heavy pan to 350 degrees.
- Open the can(s) of crescent rolls.
- Divide each crescent triangle in half.
- Either create donut shapes or "holes" with the crescent dough.
- Drop dough into the hot oil.
- Fry approx 90 seconds on each side or until golden brown.
- Place on a paper towel to drain.
- Top with powdered sugar or a mixture of cinnamon and granulated sugar.
Here’s a little fried food tip. Place a paper grocery bag on the counter and then cover with paper towels. This keeps your counters from getting super greasy and gross. It also makes clean up a breeze!
You can also use a sifter to sprinkle powdered sugar on the cronuts.
Yummmmm. I don’t eat sugary, fried food very often, but when I do I go crazy. 🙂
The best part about this treat is that all the kids can help.
Warning: Do not let your kids fry the cronuts! You all probably know that already, but people have done crazier things.
Five year olds however, are just the right age for shaping.
Sometimes they drop them on the floor and try to pick them up really quickly before mom notices and makes them throw it away.
Our circle cronuts didn’t want to stay together.
We gave up and made holes. Much easier and you can eat more and it doesn’t count.
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Katt says
I tried them for the first time the other day and loved them. This is a great easy way and I already have the ingredients on hand. Thanks for sharing!!!
Cynthia H says
These sound yummy, and not a million miles away from New Orleans beignets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beignet
Kelly says
Quick, easy and delicious!
Nef says
I started making these because I miss the Cronut’s older cousin, the Croissant Donut. Publix started making them years before the Cronut was invented. They were Croissants, shaped like Croissants, deep fried and coated with the same sugar syrup/icing that you get on yeast donuts. The result is a flaky, crispy, with edges that seem almost heavy from the icing, which seeps into the surface of the resulting donut. It’s a confection that not even the Cronut replicates. (IMO, the Cronut is inferior, but I had Croissant donuts first.)
We used to have to hunt them, because there was a woman who would come pick up the entire tray of croissant donuts at two different Publixes for her office if another customer didn’t swoop in and buy one first. If she couldn’t have the entire tray from a store, she didn’t bother. It was the only way to ensure any were to be had all day in my city.
Walmart had them too, but theirs were more lard-ish and less buttery than the butter tender croissants that Publix used.
I moved away from Publixes and haven’t had a Croissant Donut in 14 years.
I’m told that both stores stopped making Croissant Donuts not long after the Cronut appeared. Neither store makes Cronuts now (a Croissant Donut-free Publix was built in the next city. Why bother, though?). I’m not sure why the Cronut killed the Croissant Donut in Southern grocery stores. The idea is similar…the end product is very different. They could have coexisted.
But, if you shape your crescents as crescents, deep fry them, and cover them in donut icing…you’ll have something that is almost a Croissant Donut. I still miss the real thing, mind.
sam says
i laughed multiple times during your story, I will make them now and they will be delicious. Thank you from Amsterdam!