Pastry Sensation
You
won't find this recipe in any cookbook. Here's how chef Dominique
Ansel created one of the most disruptive dessert items in years.
Even
if you've never bitten into
a cronut,
chances are you're familiar with the pastry sensation that took the
world by storm last year.
Created
by New York-based chef Dominique
Ansel in
May of 2013, the croissant-donut hybrid quickly attracted a cult
following in cities across Europe and Asia. Sold for $5 a piece, the
pastry Ansel refers to as "the most virally talked about dessert
item in history," has spawned countless imitators, some of which
have adopted similar names, such as the "doissant" or
"doughssant."
So
how did the cronut generate enough buzz to create a black market on
Craigslist?
Here
are three design lessons from the cronut that together add up to a
recipe for massive success:
1. Always be branding.
Like
other portmanteaus such as "brunch" (breakfast + lunch) and
"spork" (spoon + fork), the cronut sparked instant intrigue
with consumers by blending the names of two highly recognizable
products. But Ansel didn't stop there. He quickly claimed ownership
of his invention by registering the name. Today, the Cronut
brand is an internationally registered trademark of Dominique Ansel
Bakery.
2. Embrace differences.
While
the combination of two existing pastries might come across as too
gimmicky for some consumers, the cronut is a completley distinctive
product with its own proprietary recipe. Unlike, say, the
McDonald’s McGriddle, which substitutes small pancakes for slices
of bread in a breakfast sandwich, designing the cronut required a
significant amount of innovation. One of the reasons it launched
to enormous fanfare is that nobody had ever tasted anything like it
ever before.
3. Break the rules.
Few
chefs would bother selling a pastry that requires three days to make,
but that's how long the entire process of creating a cronut takes,
according to Ansel. Perfecting the process took two months and more
than 10 recipes. While the exact recipe is still a secret, it
involves frying yeast-leavened dough in grapeseed oil at a very
specific temperature to keep the thin layers from breaking apart.
Interestingly, the result is a product that has an extremely short
shelf-life, as storing them in the refrigerator causes them to go
stale and soggy.
To
add variety to the cronut, Ansel uses a new flavor each month. For
the month of September, the flavor is Bosc Pear & Sage
Cream (with mixed citrus sugar).
BY
GRAHAM
WINFREY
http://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/3-design-lessons-from-the-original-cronut.html?cid=em01020week36a
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