Have you heard about Cronuts/ Kronuts??? OK, I am hearing it for the first time and all my American friends out there will surely be knowing about this. This is both Croissants and Donuts combined together. Croissants + Donuts = Cronuts. How is this??? When Swati announced this for the Baking Partners Challenges this month, I was wondering what to do about it. It was a lot of work and is full of butter and oil and I was thinking of shedding some calories in my diet. So after a lot of thinking, I gathered up my courage and started working on this 4 days back. Yes it needs three days to complete this dish. The first day we need to knead the dough and rest it in the fridge. The second day, the dough is laminated with butter. And the third day, the cronuts are fried, filled and coated with chocolate. It is lot of work right? But I know Sruti would love it. I halved the recipe Swati gave and got 8 cronuts. But I couldn't keep away from experimenting. So I deep fried 4 for the authentic taste and baked the other 4 for a small experiment. The baked cronuts started leaning like the leaning tower of Pisa. But taste wise it was nice and chewy. It was just like eating croissants. The deep fried ones were so tasty, crispy when still hot but became soft and chewy when filled with pastry cream. The chocolate dipping added the extra punch to the cronuts. I also deep fried those remaining dough pieces after cutting out the cronuts and coated them in cinnamom sugar. They were also very tasty and hubby dear liked it a lot.
Recipe Source: Kitchen Surfing
Ingredients:
For The Kronuts:
For The Dough:
Flour/ Maida-1 1/2 cups + 1/3 cup
Salt-1/2 tsp
Sugar-1/4 cup
Milk-1/4 cup+1 tbs
Instant Yeast-1 1/4 tsp
Butter-1 3/4 tbs
Curd-1/3 cup
For Laminating:
Butter-1/2 cup+1/6 cup
Oil-For Deep Frying
For The Pastry Cream:
Milk-1 cup
Corn Flour-1/8 cup
Sugar-1/4 cup
Vanilla Essence-1/4 tsp
Cinnamon- a pinch
Dark Chocolate -For Dipping Kronuts
Cinnamon Sugar-For Sprinkling on top
Procedure:
Eggless Pastry Cream:
1. Mix together milk, cinnamon, corn flour and sugar.
2. Bring it to boil and keep on stirring until the mixture becomes very thick.
3. Remove from flame, add vanilla essence and mix well.
4. Place a cling wrap to cover the cream touching the top to avoid formation of film.
5. Refrigerate until use.
For The Dough:
1. Mix together flour, salt, sugar and yeast.
2. In a sauce pan mix milk and butter and heat until butter melts.
3. Remove from heat and allow it to cool.
4. Add the curd and mix well.
5. Add this to the flour mixture and mix to form a dough. The dough will be crumbly at first. But when you start kneading, the sugar will start melting and the dough will become soft and smooth. So do not add water to make it soft. Then you will end up with a sticky dough.
6. Knead the dough for 10 minutes.
7. Place in a bowl, coat with oil and cover with cling wrap and let it double.
8. When double, punch the dough to degas.
9. Place it again in a bowl, coat it with oil, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Laminating The Dough:
1. Cut butter into 1/2 inch slices and form it into a rough square on a butter paper.
2. Cover with another butter paper and slightly beat it with a rolling pin to merge the pieces.
3. Now remove the top paper and slice the butter into a 4" * 5" rectangle. Place the cut out pieces on top and place the paper on it again.
4. Again press the butter with the rolling pin to make a rectangle block of butter.
5. Cover and refrigerate until firm.
6. Remove the dough from fridge and roll into a 10" * 10" square.
7. It will be very firm and you will have a tough time rolling it. Do not expect it to be smoother.
8. Now place the firmed butter in the centre of the rectangle.
9. Follow the pictures for clear instructions on laminating the dough.
10. Refrigerating the dough in between folds is very important as you don't want to break the dough and butter oozing out of the dough.
11. The important point is that, both the dough and butter should be at the same consistency. If the dough is harder then it will tear and soft butter will ooze out of the dough.
12. So it takes time and a lot of practice to master this art. But still if you feel the dough is tearing rest it for some time before rolling it and if you feel the dough is very soft then refrigerate it before rolling.
13. Once folding 4 times is over, roll out the dough into a rectangle of 1/4" thickness, place on a lined tray, cover with a butter paper and refrigerate for a day.
Frying, Filling And Finishing The Kronuts:
1. The next day, use a larger cap of bottle to cut the kronuts and a smaller cap for the centre of the kronuts.
2. Once cut, arrange on a tray lined with butter paper, cover with a towel and let it double for 45 minutes.
3. Now place it in refrigerator and leave it there for 1 hour or until firm.
4. Heat oil in a deep pan.
5. Deep fry the kronuts one by one until golden on both sides.
6. If you are just coating it with cinnamon sugar, then drop the hot kronuts in the sugar and roll to coat it completely.
7. Serve it warm.
8. If you opt for filling it, then allow it to cool.
9. Take the pastry cream in a piping bag with a pointed nozzle.
10. Insert the nozzle in the sides of kronuts and pipe some pastry cream into it.
11. Melt some chocolate in a double boiler, dip the filled kronuts into the chocolate and sprinkle the top with cinnamon sugar immediately.
12. Allow the chocolate to set.
13. Serve immediately and Enjoy!!!
Mix the dry ingredients.
Melt butter and milk.
Add curd.
Add it to the flour.
Knead to incorporate all the flour.
Take it to counter.
Knead for 10 minutes.
Place in a bowl and allow it to double.
Degas, place it in another bowl, cover and refrigerate.
Take the cold butter block.
Cut it to fit the square.
Pound it with a rolling pin.
Now you can see the layers merging together.
Cut out the extra butter, place on top and pound again until you get a neat rectangle.
Cover and refrigerate until firm.
Remove the dough from fridge.
Roll it into a rough rectangle.
Place the butter in the middle.
Fold as shown.
Fold the other side.
Fold the remaining sides to make an envelope.
Roll it out into a rectangle. Keep on elongating the dough.
Now fold as shown.
Fold the other side. Mark on hole on the side. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Now roll it again along the fold.
Fold it again and mark two holes. Repeat this twice more. Refrigerate.
Roll the laminated dough into a rectangle. Cover and refrigerate for a day.
Cut out the donut shapes on the firm dough.
Place them on a tray and let it sit for 45 minutes on the counter.
When double, cover and refrigerate until firm.
Deep fry the kronuts.
Remove from oil when nicely browned.
Drain oil and place on a plate.
These are the baked ones. The layers just slided.
Mix together milk, corn flour, sugar.
Add cinnamom.
Cook until thick.
Transfer to a bowl, cover with cling and refrigerate.
When set the cream will be like this.
Fill it in a piping bag.
Fill the kronuts with the cream.
Coat the top with melted chocolate.
Sprinkle cinnamon sugar and allow it to set.
Serve and Enjoy!!!
Linking this to Yeastspotting
Labels: BAKING PARTNERS, EGGLESS, KRONUTS, LAMINATED DOUGH, YEAST
