DIY the best darned donuts you've ever tasted, right in your own kitchen with this wildly simple puffed pastry hack. Ready-made puffed pastry is fried in coconut oil until golden, then topped with a caramel-maple bacon icing. Served with blueberries on top, you could call this dessert. But let's pretend it's a proper breakfast, too. Shall we?
Ever since cronut came busting onto the scene in NYC a few years back, I've wanted to try the things. But one google of Dominique Ansel's At-Home Cronut Recipe and even I--the professional-food-maker-for-a-living girl-- felt a little overwhelmed by the process. So put it off and put it off, thinking that surely there would be one lazy Saturday morning when I'd want to make my own croissant dough, knead it, wait for it to rise, cut it, fry it, and finally (finally!) enjoy the sweet taste of those much-talked-about flaky cronuts.
Until, in a raging fit of donut needery, I realized, I didn't have to make cronuts from scratch in order to make them at home.
Puffed pastry offered a perfectly buttery dough base. And that was ready to go in the freezer section of my local Trader Joe's.
So off I went to grab a box (or two)(or three), onto the stove went the coconut oil, and into the fryer went the puffed pastry dough.
And it worked.
In 5 minutes flat, I had a whole plate full of cronuts. Hot and flaky and begging for bourbon icing.
Side note: I think everything should beg for bourbon icing, don't you?
The end result were these glory glorious bourbon-bacon donuts. And lawd a'mighty. They's is perfection.
You can tell, because I am typing like a nerdo.
Don't let that distract you from the donuts at hand.
Food Photography Geek-Out Moment
These images were shot with a Canon 5D Mk III paired with a Canon 24-70 f/2.8 . When shooting overhead, I almost always handhold my camera. And I always set the shutterspeed to 125 or higher, with the fstop at 5.0 (sometimes I'll go as low as 4.0 if I need a little more light on a dark or cloudy day).
Learn more about my camera setup favorites here, including a few of the best budget-friendly kits.
The backdrop is a sheet of textured aluminum, purchased from Ace Hardware for $30, then slathered with quickcrete (a putty knife helps get those nice thin, but uneven "swipes") then spraypainted a navy blue. Shortly after this shoot, I retired that backdrop, because even with the puttied on layer of quickcrete, the texture on the aluminum sheet felt dated to me. Not to mention, the single paint color felt like a waste of opportunity to create some added visual intrigue. I've since created 2 more images with quickcrete, but coated them with varying colors of light blue and white. (Check it out here).
You can watch me create more DIY backdrops here.
And a note about that napkin there. I purchased a 2-pack of these 100% Pure Linen Napkins from AliExpress.com and they have become some of my favorite in the prop closet. Perfectly sized, and once you wash them, they drape and crumple so beautifully. Really a great set!
Nerd out with me 24/7 in my Food Blogging, Photography & Videography Facebook Group. It's free to join!
The 5-Minute Maple Bourbon Bacon Cronut
6 servings | 5 minutes prep
FOR THE DONUTS:
- 16 oz coconut oil
- 1 round puffed pastry, thawed (I used Trader Joe's)
- 1 pint blueberries
FOR THE FROSTING:
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 Tbsp bourbon
- pinch cinnamon
- 1-2 Tbsp milk
- 1/2 cup cooked, chopped bacon
Heat coconut oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Cut puffed pastry with a donut cutter. Fry in oil until golden on both sides.
While donuts are cooking, stir together frosting ingredients, adding just enough milk to make a drizzly frosting. As soon as donuts are golden and cooked through, drizzle with frosting and top with many, many of blueberries. Enjoy while warm.