The cronut frenzy has reached the shores of the UK in full force recently. If you haven’t heard of cronuts, please google them and then return (stares into the middle distance for a minute).

Ever since reading about them in various gushing articles, I have been pensively wishing to try them. Pensively because I don’t live in New York, and even going to nearby London just to ferret one out is a pricey trip.

In preparation for my birthday I carefully hoarded a collection of links to pass on to H as cheeky suggestions for my birthday cake. Of course I didn’t just limit my request to cronuts/doissants, but luckily for me, that was what he made.

No shortcuts for H. Where as I probably would have bought a can of pre-made croissant dough and messily dropped portions into hot oil, H crafted a croissant dough recipe he found on Top With Cinnamon (the animated gifs were the killer stroke). He referenced a few different online recipes for cooking times, created creme patisserie, and on my birthday morning I was presented with an array of deep-fried delights.

Wow were these better than regular doughnuts. They were the richest, softest most awesome doughnuts I’d ever had, and even with just a simple dusting of cinnamon sugar were magical, so you can imagine what one containing creme patisserie and drizzled with dark chocolate was like.

I appreciate the official trademark cronut uses a proprietary laminated dough (I had to look up what that meant) and visually looks more layered. It may even taste superior, but I would be impressed if that were the case. Thankfully there is still some croissant dough in the freezer so I look forward to a second batch of H’s version some time in our future when I’ve atoned with a few barrels of greens.