This is it. The only thing you ever need to bake ever again.
Ingredients:
60 ml warm milk
65 ml warm water
6g dried yeast
150g cold, cubed butter
160g flour
30g white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
- Whisk milk, water and yeast together in a large plastic bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes to activate yeast.
- Combine salt and white sugar.
- Add butter to flour and combine with your fingers until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Don’t go crazy, lumps of butter are good and will help create a luscious, layered texture.
- Add sugar/salt to flour/butter. Pour combination into the milk/water/yeast.
- Stir with a spatula until a shaggy ball forms. If the mixture is too sticky, add tablespoons of flour at a time to coax it into a ball.
- Turn out onto a floured work surface and pat into a thick oval. Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit in fridge for 1.5-2 hours. Touch it as little as possible.
- Remove plastic wrap and roll into a 1cm thick rectangle. Fold the dough into thirds, first bringing the top third down over the middle and then bringing the bottom third up over the middle.
- Rotate 90 degrees, roll out, and then fold into thirds again.
- Repeat the process twice more.
- Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 5-7 hours, or overnight, in the fridge.
- Roll out the dough again, to a ~1/8″ thick rectangle. You should be able to get 8 cronuts out of the first roll, plus 4-6 more if you re-roll the scraps of dough. You can also fry the holes!!
- Use cookie cutters to cut out cronuts and their centers. Transfer to a floured sheet pan to rise for another hour at room temperature, covered with a cloth.
- Near the end of the rise period, fill a large pan with canola oil approximately ~1/2-3/4″ deep. If you’re making glaze, start that now too (see below for recipes). Heat the oil over low-medium heat.
- Fry cronuts, without crowding, for ~2 minutes on each side. You’re shooting for a lovely golden color, not too dark.
- Remove from oil and let cool on paper towels.
- Drizzle with glaze and sprinkles.
Chocolate Glaze:
Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
1/8 cup milk
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- Heat butter, milk, corn syrup and vanilla until simmering.
- Stir in chocolate and whisk until melted.
- Remove from heat and stir in confectioner’s sugar.
- Keep over warm water or reheat if mixture hardens.
Vanilla Glaze:
Ingredients
1/8 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- Heat milk and vanilla in a saucepan until warm.
- Remove from heat and stir in confectioner’s sugar until smooth.
- If the mixture becomes too stiff, return to stove and heat gently.
