Better Than Cronuts
11 years ago
guest post by R. Snow from City Weekly
For the past few months, something known as a “cronut”—half donut, half croissant—has dominated the bakedgood scene in New York City. Customers line up at the Dominique Ansel Bakery in Soho starting at around 6 a.m., and the bakery usually sells out within a few hours. And now, thanks to two caterers from Sandy, Utahns don’t have to travel to the Big Apple, or even wake up at the crack of dawn, to get a bite of one.
Dana Johannessen and Darlene Madison of Bella Bella Patisserie heard the buzz about cronuts and set out to re-create the pastries, which they are calling doussantz. Perfecting the recipe took about a month of trial and error, Madison says. “Croissant dough has a high butter content, and it took a while to figure out how to fry it without it melting,” she says. But once the two cooks had perfected their recipe, Madison felt confident the square-shaped doussant could go headto-head with the round cronut any day.
Dennis Madison, Darlene’s husband, says, “We’ve had someone try ours who claimed to have had the cronut, and they said the doussant was better.” But Bella Bella is looking for more Salt Lake City residents who have been to New York and tried the cronut to compare the two delicacies.
Comparisons aside, so far Bella Bella is pleased with the results. The first time Bella Bella sold doussantz, they decided to just set up a food truck behind a commercial building on South Temple. They sent out about 2,500 emails, but otherwise did not advertise. Despite the minimal marketing, “the first three times we sold the doussantz, we sold out of all of them in about 25 minutes,” Dennis Madison says.
It takes three days to make one batch of doussantz, which is why Johannessen and Madison currently sell only limited quantities from their commercial kitchen in Sandy, the Wheeler Farm farmers market on Sunday mornings, and by special order.
Each doussant is made up of 24 layers of fried dough, which are then rolled in scented sugar, filled with pastry cream, and topped with buttercream frosting.
One doussant is $5.50. Customers can also buy “petals,” or the center cutout of each doussant, for $2. Current flavors are chocolate hazelnut, Nutter Butter, maple bacon, cinnamon bun, and raspberry lemon cheesecake, but customers can also request their own flavor ideas if they order 20 or more. Bella Bella Patisserie is located at located at Dinner Market, 668 Union Square, and may be reached at 801-923-4969.