Cronuts!!!!

Unless you have been hiding from the rest of the world, you would know that cronuts are the new doughtnuts that have taken the world by storm. Originating in Manhattan, this fantastically delicious combination of the traditional doughnut and croissant makes you feel like you are eating a cloud. It is that good.... Now, I must warn you that this recipe does take abit of time and patience so stick with it, as the end result is sooooo worth it!!!! :) 

Ingredients: - 

1/4 Cup of water

1/4 Cup of milk

7g dry yeast

150g butter (Chopped into cubes, keep cold) 

250g flour 

1/2 Tsp Salt

1/4 Cup of castor sugar or Xylitol (Extra for coating at the end) 

Sunflower or Canola oil for frying 

Method: - 

Mix the water and milk together and pop into the microwave to warm up. You want this only slightly warm so probably 30 - 40 seconds would do the trick. Add the yeast to the warmed milk and water and whisk. Now, keep the yeast aside and add your flour, salt and sugar/xylitol to a food processor and give it a quick whizz to mix everything together. Add the chopped butter and blitz till you see the flour and butter mix together but, you still want to have chunks of butter in. Once this is happening add the yeast mix to the dough and mix till a dough is formed. Empty this onto a slightly floured surface and knead the dough into a ball, clingfilm the dough and place in the fridge for 2 hours.

After your dough has rested for 2 hours, remove the clingfilm and place your dough onto a lightly floured surface. What you want to do now is roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick and then fold one end into the middle and the other over like in the picture below. This process of rolling into a rectangle and folding needs to be repeated 6 times. The reason for for doing this is that you want to build layers. Think of when you bite into a croissant you see those distinct layers, this is the process that creates that effect. Once you have repeated this process place the clingfilm over the dough and leave it in the fridge, overnight. 

The next day take the dough out of the clingfilm, I usually let the dough warm up to room temperature before I roll the dough out. Make sure you place the dough on a lightly floured surface as it will start to stick once it starts to reach room temperature. Roll the dough into a rectangle, you want this about a 1/4 inch thick as well and then cut into doughnuts using your cookie cutter and place onto a lightly floured tray and leave it to rise for about 2 hours, cover with clingfilm or kitchen towel. Like in the picture below. 

Once you see the cronuts have risen you are then ready to fry them. Place your oil onto a medium heat, you want the oil to be hot enough to cook them right through, you will see them puff up and form these amazing layers as you fry them. The oil should be about 170 degrees. I usually test my oil with a tester. I kept a small piece of dough as you can see in the tray above and I popped it into the oil when the oil felt warm enough and checked that it took roughly 2 minutes to brown on either side. Fry your cronuts and let them drain on some paper towel before coating them in sugar or xylitol. 

To serve, you can decorate the cronut the same way you would with a doughnut, icing sugar, you could fill the cronut with custard or jam. I prefer to serve it with some tampered choclate and strawberries as you can see in the picture right at the top, I have some tempered chocolate at the back with strawberries. Enjoy!!!! This is time consuming I know, but so so soooooo worth every bite.