Cronuts: The Jon Snow of Pastries

Missy Bon Bon's Strawberry Frost Cronut

The Cronut is the Jon Snow of pastries, a bastard offspring of a croissant and a doughnut. The term cronut  itself being a portmanteau of croissant and doughnut. It is essentially a croissant shaped like a doughnut with frosting and either a cream of jelly filling.

Origins of the Cronut

The cronut originally came from New York, an invention of chef Dominique Ansel for his bakery. In fact, the term "cronut" has been trademarked by the bakery. Much of its appeal came from the limited quantities Ansel produces daily, only 200 to 250 pieces and limits 2 cronuts to a customer This created a demand for the pastry that could not be sated even as copycat versions arose all over the United States and has also opened a thriving black market for it.

The first cronut in the Philippines came from Wildflour, and said to have originated from a reversed engineered piece of the original New York cronut. Since cronut is a trademarked name, they sell it as "croissant donuts."  I actually asked for some from my folks who had business in Manila a few weeks back, but the inclement weather made it impossible for them to secure fresh cronuts for me. Luckily, at around the same time, Missy Bon Bon Breadshop in Cagayan de Oro introduced their own version of the cronut.

Cronuts in Cagayan de Oro

Missy Bon Bon markets their version as Cronut and its Strawberry Frost was the first I tasted and though I loved the texture of it, but I'm not really a big fan of jelly filled pastries.I wished it had more frosting and I'd rather that the first cronut I tasted was cream filled and not jelly, but that's just me.

It wasn't until the last Trivia Night of August, when Team 6 won first place that I had another chance to try a cronut. Team 6's prize box had a few cronuts and I think it included all the flavors Missy Bon Bon had. I had this custard filled cronut which they called the Sweet Missy. It was when I was biting into the flaky croissant like crust and tasting the custard explosion when I realized the basis of the hype behind this current craze has some substance. I enjoyed it and would like to try another one soon.

Team 6's prize box has some cronuts!

Team 6 enjoying the spoils of victories and cronuts.