The delicious part-doughnut-part-croissant filled with whipped up vanilla cream, as created by Dominique Ansel, has swept the USA. Although we’re a bit behind on the Cronut craze here in London, New York is up and at ’em, each and every morning at the unearthly hour of four am. The $5 (£3.3.0) Cronut has caused so much chaos in New York City that the bakery limits purchases to two per customer per day (so, that means no more $40 Cronuts on the black market, not that we could ever believe that anyone would pay that!). The demand for Cronuts is so great that the bakery has had to hire an extra half-dozen bakers since the Cronut was created in May, expanding its staff to 20.
Dominique Ansel, creator of the delicious pastry hybrid at the Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York, has trademarked the Cronut, but not without controversy.
A spokeswoman for Ansel noted that other bakeries have been selling similar products that they advertised as Cronuts, or they change the spelling such as ‘croughnuts’ or ‘cro-nut’, which are infringements on the trademark. When asked to stop, some of the bakeries get defensive and accuse Ansel of trying to crush culinary creativity.
Since then, the Cronut craze has skyrocketed.
Cronuts, like any sought after product, have a markup value that could break your bank. One Cronut goes for $100. Ten Cronuts? $1,500. If you’re willing to shell out for 20, it’s going to run you $5,000 (Seriously, wouldn’t you rather have a Chanel purse?) The service is donating 10% of proceeds to Food Bank New York, but still. This is getting a bit ridiculous.
Needless to say, if you’re headed to New York anytime soon, put Dominique Ansel Bakery right up there on the sight-seeing list alongside the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State.
Are you lucky enough to have savoured the original Cronut? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter @beautyanthedirt