The Nutella Fauxnut – A Super Easy DIY Cronut!
By now we’ve all pretty much heard of the Cronut™. The croissant/donut hybrid created in New York by chef Dominique Ansel that has seen people queuing up from before 5am in the morning just to give it a try. His version is rolled in sugar, filled with cream and then topped with glaze (in May it was Rose Vanilla, and now for June it is Lemon Maple.) Soon enough, copycats began springing up around the world (including Adrian Zumbo’s Zonut) and Ansel swiftly trademarked his Cronut™.
This month’s Sweet Adventures Blog Hop is “Out of the Frying Pan” and is celebrating all things fried – what a perfect excuse to give this a whirl!
I wanted to create an easy DIY version of the Cronut™ that any home baker could recreate in their kitchen. I used store-bought puffed pastry (shock horror!) and my technique was actually embarrassingly simple – the reason I ended up calling it a Fauxnut! A criticism I have heard of the Cronut™ is that it is sickly sweet, so I decided to skip the triple threat of sugar x sweet cream x glaze. I considered a cinnamon icing initially and ended up settling on a Nutella filling. Because we all know how amazing Nutella is! A light dusting of icing sugar gave the Fauxnut the right amount of sweetness.
- 3 x sheets store-bought puff pastry
- 750ml vegetable oil or other flavourless oil
- 1 cup Nutella
- 3 tbsp icing sugar
- Pour vegetable oil into a heavy based saucepan over a medium heat, bring the oil to 170°C. If you don’t have a thermometer, test the temperature of the oil by dropping in one of your donut holes – if it immediately starts to bubble and rise to the surface, your oil is hot enough.
- While the oil is heating, cut donut shapes out of your thawed puff pastry. Use a large, round cookie cutter and a much smaller one to remove the “donut hole”. I got 6 donut shapes per sheet of puff pastry.
- As soon as the oil has reached the correct temperature, gently lower in your first donut. It will start to puff up and brown.
- Once the bottom of the donut is golden brown, turn it over with a slotted spoon and let it brown on the other side before quickly removing it from the oil and placing on paper towel to drain.
- Repeat this process with the remaining donuts (and donut holes!) until all are golden brown. Be careful the oil doesn’t get too hot as they may start to burn.
- Put the Nutella in a small piping bag and pipe a thick line of Nutella around the top of half the cooled Fauxnuts.
- Gently sandwich the remaining Fauxnuts on top of each one.
- Dust the top of each Fauxnut with icing sugar.
Here is a quick step-by-step guide!
Step 1: Cut out the donut sheets from the thawed puff pastry using a larger and smaller cookie cutter.
Step 2: Once your oil is hot enough, gently lower the donut into the hot oil. It should immediately start to bubble and puff and rise to the surface.
Step 3: When the bottom is golden brown, turn the donut over in the oil to cook the other side.
Step 4: Drain all the Fauxnuts on paper towel and allow to cool (I made a mixture of big and small Fauxnuts).
Step 5: Pipe the Nutella in a circle on top of half the Fauxnuts, before gently sandwiching the remaining ones together.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!
What’s my verdict? Well without having the opportunity to yet try a Cronut™ (or even a Zonut) for comparison I can only go by what I made today. The slightly savoury puff pastry contrasts well with the sweet Nutella and dusting of icing sugar. Despite quickly frying and draining the Fauxnuts, they are still VERY and buttery rich. I would enforce a 1 Fauxnut per person rule if you don’t want to feel sick afterwards!
Have you tried a Cronut™ or Zonut? Do they live up to the hype?
Choc Chip Blondies with a Salted Caramel Drizzle
I’ve never actually tried a Blondie before I made this recipe and curiosity finally got the better of me. What is a Blondie, I hear you ask? It’s like a Brownie in shape and texture, but flavoured with brown sugar instead of cocoa powder. To be honest I actually thought it sounded a little bland. I added dark choc chips to mine and finished it off with a salted caramel drizzle and HELLO DECADENTLY AWESOME TREAT. I seriously hope this salted caramel trend never fades because damn I love it.
Look at that salted caramel ooze! Chewy and fudgey in the centre and crunchy on the outside, Brownies better watch out – they have some stiff competition!
- 125g butter
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- ¼ cup caster sugar
- 2 tbsps water
- ⅓ cup thickened cream
- 1-2 tsps of sea salt (to taste)
- Preheat oven to 170°C. Line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper.
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.
- Beat in egg and vanilla.
- Add in flour and salt, beat until just combined (do not overmix).
- Fold in ½ cup of the dark chocolate chips.
- Transfer batter to the lined baking tin, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.
- Bake for around 40 mins, until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Set pan on a wire rack, and let cool completely.
- Dissolve the sugar into the water in a heavy bottomed saucepan and let it bubble away over a medium heat.
- The mixture should turn a golden caramel colour after around 5 minutes. DON’T stir the caramel mixture – the sugar will crystallize.
- Once the caramel has reached the desired colour, take it off the heat and add the salt and gradually add the cream. Stir furiously as the caramel will want to harden quickly.
- Pop the caramel cream mixture in a small bowl and put it in the fridge to help cool down quickly.
- Drizzle the caramel over the cooled Blondies before cutting into 16 squares.
Salted Caramel Chip Cookies
I was craving cookies over the rainy weekend and wanted to jazz up my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. I found some Nestle caramel chips in the supermarket and thought a salted caramel cookie would be a winner!
I reduced the sugar in these cookies as the caramel chips are very sweet. You can add more salt (or even less) to taste, but I love the contrast of the sweet caramelised bits and the occasional crunch of salt. Delicious!
- 140g butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1½ cups plain flour
- 1 tsp sea salt + extra to sprinkle on top
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 250g Nestle caramel chips
- Preheat oven to 170°C. Cream the butter and sugar for at least 5 minutes until the mixture becomes light and fluffy.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat well.
- Add caramel chips, flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Beat on low speed until just combined (don’t overwork the mixture or it can become tough).
- Dollop tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough onto lined baking trays. Sprinkle each cookie with a bit more sea salt.
- Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, around 12-14 minutes.
Please try very hard not to eat all the cookie dough, I often end up getting only 19 cookies from this batch into the oven due to the irresistible powers of raw cookie dough :p
The MCA Zine Fair & the launch of my online shop!
Hey guys,
A huge thank you to everyone who came down to visit JJ & I at the MCA Zine Fair on Sunday. It was a busy, exhausting and fun day and I can’t wait to do it all again next year (am I mad?!)
I still have copies leftover and I know a lot of out-of-towners were keen to get their hands on some. I have created an online store where you can purchase the zines and they will be available in an e-book format shortly too.
We were really impressed with our print job from EW Lee and it was great to see all our hard work eventuate into a printed and bound copy.
The night before I baked 100 mini Pineapple & Coconut Cupcakes and Devil’s Food Cupcakes as free “gift-with-purchase” to entice (ie bribe) customers.
Here is our table all set up at the fair!
And here we are :)
I will be adding more to the store in coming weeks, I’ll keep you posted!
Dark Chocolate Mocha Tart
This bittersweet dark chocolate mocha tart is rich in flavour and texture and perfectly contrasts with the buttery French pastry used in the tart. I first came across this unique way to make French butter pastry from JJ at 84th and 3rd, who discovered the technique from David Leibovitz.
It involves heating the butter, oil, water and seasonings in a bowl in the oven (what?!) and then stirring the flour into this bubbling, golden brown mixture. It throws the traditional pastry method of combing chilled butter and flour out the window and I know I will be making this pastry recipe over and over again!
For the filling I wanted something decadently rich but not too sweet. I added instant espresso powder to the chocolate ganache to make it mocha flavoured and it was a huge hit when I bought it to dinner! We served it with ice-cream but you can eat it on its own, with cream, or some berries would be delicious too.
- 90g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp sugar
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 150g plain flour
- 170g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70%)
- 1 tbsp honey
- 3 tsp instant espresso
- ½ cup thickened cream
- 1 tbsp butter
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 210º C.
- Combine the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt in a medium-sized ovenproof bowl – I used a Pyrex bowl.
- Put the bowl in the oven for around 15 minutes, or until the butter starts to brown just around the edges and is bubbling.
- Carefully remove the bowl from oven, keep your over mitts on as it will be VERY hot. Quickly stir in the flour until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball.
- Dump the dough into a 9-inch/23 cm tart tin with a removable base and start spreading it out with a spatula.
- Allow the dough to cool enough so you can handle it and spread it out evenly across the base and up the sides. Use a fork to gently press the dough against the sides to reinforce it.
- Keep a small piece of dough aside for patching any cracks.
- Prick the dough all over with a fork, then bake in the oven for 15 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool completely before filling with the chocolate mocha ganache.
- Combine chopped dark chocolate, honey and instant espresso powder in a medium bowl.
- In a small saucepan bring the cream to a simmer. Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted.
- Add the butter and vanilla extract to the chocolate and stir until the mixture is very smooth.
- Pour the chocolate ganache into the cooled tart shell.
- Put the tart in the fridge and allow to set for at least 2 hours.
- Serve at room temperature with icecream.
Bon appétit!
Pavlova with Cream, Passionfruit and Kiwi
When I asked my friend what he wanted me to bake for his birthday he instantly declared pavlova! I must admit I had a bit of “pavlova anxiety”. Having eaten a fair bit of bad pav in my life – dried out, collapsed or even undercooked (ugh) I wanted to perfect my recipe.
Fortunately this technique is easy and relatively fool-proof and produced the most gorgeous pavlova – crunchy on the outside and soft and marshmallowy on the inside. Success! I wanted to top it with seasonal fruit and picked up some gorgeous passionfruit and kiwis to adorn it with. Combined with a generous dollop of whipped cream it was promptly devoured.
- 4 egg whites (room temp)
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 3 tsps cornflour
- 1 tsps white vinegar
- 250ml thickened cream
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- 2 x kiwifruit
- 2 x passionfruit
- Preheat oven to 150°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Using an electric mixer, beat egg-whites until soft peaks form.
- Gradually add the sugar, beating well until the mixture is glossy and the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the cornflour and vinegar and fold through.
- Spoon mixture into a 18-20cm circle. Using a palette knife, shape into a circle with high sides.
- Place in the oven, reduce the heat to 120°C and cook for 1 hour.
- Then turn the oven off and allow the meringue to completely cool in the oven.
- Using an electric mixer, beat cream and icing sugar until soft peaks form.
- Gently transfer pavlova to a cake stand. To serve, top with whipped cream and fresh fruit.
You can top it with whatever fruits are in season- berries, figs, cooked apples, or add cocoa powder to the meringue and top with chocolate and cream!
DIY Dulce de Leche
Last year I posted about receiving 2 jars of delicious Dulce de Leche (or in Portuguese Doce de Leite) from my cousin who had just returned from South America. Unsurprisingly the jars were finished a little too quickly. After some internet research I discovered you can buy the real deal from Mi Casa Fine Foods, or at a store called La Torre, 9 Nelson St Fairfield. But I really wanted to try and make my own. Not only is it cheaper, I can make it on demand whenever I wanted!
I have heard horror stories of tins of sweetened condensed milk exploding after being submerged in boiling water for too long and wanted to find an easier (and safer) method. I learnt from a friend that cooking the sweetened condensed milk in the oven not only is less stressful, but results in a richer and more caramelised final product. Sold.
- 1 400g can sweetened condensed milk
- Sea salt (optional)
- Preheat oven to 220°C.
- Pour the sweetened condensed milk into an oven-proof dish. Sprinkle over sea salt if needed. Tightly cover the dish with foil.
- Place covered dish in a roasting pan and fill with water until it comes ¾ of the way up the oven-proof dish, to create a water bath.
- Place in the oven and cook for 1 hour and 30 mins, checking every 30 mins to top up the water bath if need be (I had to top the water up once).
- Once the mixture is nicely browned and caramelised, remove from the oven and let it cool down.
- Once cool, whisk the dulce de leche until smooth.
- Store in an airtight, clean container (I used a mason jar).
Here is a quick visual step-by-step guide:
Step 1. Pour the can of sweetened condensed milk into an oven-proof dish.
Step 2. Tightly cover the dish with foil and fill the roasting pan 3/4 full with water to make a water bath.
Step 3. After cooking down the condensed milk for 1 hour and 30 mins, the mixture should be golden and caramelised.
Super easy, right? Now you can the recipes for 2 awesome homemade spreads! (the gluten and dairy-free Nutella recipe is here).
Need some ideas on what to make with this homemade dulce de leche? How about caramel-filled Bunny Biscuits? Or Sesame Seed Biscuits with Dulce de Leche, Banoffee Pie with Salted Pretzel Crust or Ginger Biscuits with Salted Caramel Buttercream?
Enjoy!
Apple & Walnut Spiced Loaf with Streusel Topping
Autumn is settling in to Sydney and bringing with it a delicious array of seasonal fruits, vegetables and nuts. This month’s Sweet Adventure’s Blog Hop focuses on seasonal produce and gave me a chance to develop a recipe with two of my favourite autumn ingredients – apples and walnuts! Naturally I had to add spices to the loaf – cinnamon is apple’s best friend and nutmeg is warming and a perfect flavour for the cooling days. I topped off the loaf with a streusel topping – a satisfying sweet buttery crunch.
- 2 cups diced apples (about 1½ large)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 120g butter, softened
- 1 egg, room temp
- 1¼ cups plain flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- ¼ cup chopped walnuts
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- Preheat oven to 180°. Grease a loaf tin with butter (or use a silicon non-stick one).
- Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy in a large bowl.
- Add egg and continue beating until well combined.
- Stir in diced apples.
- Sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking soda into bowl. Add chopped walnuts and mix thoroughly.
- Transfer mixture to prepared pan.
- In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients and stir until well combined and crumbly.
- Sprinkle streusel mixture over the top of loaf before putting into the oven.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the loaf is brown and crusty on top and a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool loaf in tray on rack.
I also made a batch into little muffins, this recipe makes 12 cupcake-sized treats. Make sure you fill each liner with mixture nearly all the way (about 7/8 full) as the mixture doesn’t rise much.
Fashion Cupcakes
You know when you stumble across something on the internet and think “damn I wish I thought of that”. Well, it happens to me quite often. And when I saw these awesome fashion-inspired cupcakes made by Edsalv Lisa and photographed by Therese Aldgard I knew I had to share. They accurately portray the style of each fashion label through lighting, colour and design, cleverly creating boob cupcakes for Agent Provocateur and a red velvet interior to represent the infamous Christian Louboutin shoe.
Agent Provocateur
Betsey Johnson
Chanel
Louis Vuitton
Christian Louboutin
Which is your favourite designer cupcake? Are there any fashion labels you would love to see them create?
Homemade Nutella (Gluten and Dairy Free!)
I loooooove Nutella and try to avoid keeping it in the house as you will always find me in the kitchen clutching a jar, spoon in hand. This is the perfect treat for those who are on a gluten or dairy free diet, who dislike additives in their food or who simply just love the idea of being able to whip up a batch of homemade Nutella whenever they feel like it!
- 250g hazelnuts
- 1 cup pure icing sugar (Pure icing sugar is gluten free; soft icing sugar & icing sugar mixture contain cornflour)
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp vege oil (or similar flavourless oil)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- Preheat oven to 180ºC. Arrange hazelnuts on an oven tray and roast for 10 mins.
- Transfer roasted nuts to a clean tea towel and gently rub off the bitter hazelnut skins.
- Transfer the hazelnuts to the food processor and blitz for a few minutes until their oil is released and it forms a paste.
- Add in the sugar, cocoa, oil, vanilla and salt and blitz again for 2 minutes until it forms a spreadable consistency.
- Taste the Nutella at this stage, if you want it sweeter then add more icing sugar, if you want it more chocolately and rich, add more cocoa.
- Transfer the Nutella to a clean, airtight jar. I store mine in the fridge and it can last up to a month (but I doubt it will!)
Here is a quick visual step-by-step guide:
Step 1. Spread the hazelnuts out on a baking tray and toast for 10 mins in the oven.
Step 2. Transfer nuts to a clean tea towel and gently rub off the bitter hazelnut skins. It makes a bit of a mess.
Step 3. The clean, roasted hazelnuts! Blitz them in the food processor, and then add remaining ingredients.
Step 4. The ideal finished consistency.
Apart from spreading your homemade Nutella on toast or just eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon, what else can you do? How about using it in a Nutella Cheesecake? Or in a Triple Decker Ferrero Rocher Cake with Nutella Buttercream? Or sandwiching it between some super easy and rich biscuits?
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