Dunkin' Cronuts

October 29, 2014 8:29 PM

Starting November 3, Dunkin' Donuts will introduce a limited edition "Croissant Donut" across the nation. Just don't call it a you-know-what. "Are we copying a specific bakery in New York? The answer is no," says John Costello, Dunkin's President of Global Marketing and Innovation. When asked about the similarities between Dunkin's product ($2.49 each) and the one trademarked by Chef Dominique Ansel ($5 each), Dunkin's Executive Chef Jeff Miller responded: "I've tried the product that you mention... I like ours better."
posted by Going To Maine (65 comments total)

A local grocery store chain in Utah tried to do this last year. They tasted so bad. Like dousing your mouth with sweetened Crisco. So, so, awful.
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:32 PM on October 29, 2014

"President of Global Marketing and Innovation"

I'll note here that someone daring to call him self "President of Innovation" at a company that sells things people eat has no culinary expertise at all. So I don't know what he's innovating, but I suspect his real title is "President of Marketing and Marketing."
posted by 1adam12 at 8:33 PM on October 29, 2014 [17 favorites]

I want a Double Down between two Dunkin Cronuts.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:37 PM on October 29, 2014 [15 favorites]

They're just introducing these in the States now?

The Dunkin Donuts in Seoul were advertising these last year. I tried one, it wasn't bad.
posted by C^3 at 8:40 PM on October 29, 2014

(D')O(ug)h the horror.
posted by Catblack at 8:40 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

grumpybear69, please, before you do anything rash, think about the people who care about you. I know you must be in a dark place right now; but please, reach out to someone and talk.
posted by Grimgrin at 8:40 PM on October 29, 2014 [25 favorites]

Do you like donuts? Delicious donuts? Well, if you do, then you deserve some donuts.
posted by moonmilk at 8:41 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

My local bakery does this and just calls them you-know-what and I love them. I have actually eaten one split with a fried egg and bacon and it was beautiful and I am not going to do that again for at least another five years.
posted by Sequence at 8:44 PM on October 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Dunkin Donuts barely qualify as actual donuts next to Shipley's or Krispy Kreme (KK are themselves hella overrated but not bad). I can't imagine this rises above the level of fair food. Which, don't get me wrong, has its place and its charms, but at the end of the day somebody just dunked an Oreo in 5¢ worth of pre-made Bisquick and threw it into a dirty fry-o-lator.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:47 PM on October 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

I have never been lucky enough to taste a cronut. However, a great deal of my enthusiasm for the entire thing is the promise of a cream filling inside the croissanty and deep fried goodness, so the news that DD's version will be cream fillingless has engendered deep sadness.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 8:48 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Are we copying a specific bakery in New York? The answer is no," says John Costello,

"Was that a bald-faced lie? The answer is yes."
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:00 PM on October 29, 2014 [19 favorites]

Late to the party. Like Korea, Japan's biggest chain, Mr. Donut has had a few versions of these since the spring, and a couple of the convenience store chains even made their own versions.

I had one from Lawson: pretty good but I get anal about messy food and these combine all the goop leakage of filled donuts with all the flake dropping of a croissant.
posted by p3t3 at 9:00 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

They had croissant-donuts at my local Safeway a year ago. "Dossants" I think they called them. I'm serious!

They were meh. Neither great nor terrible. About as good as a grocery store croissant.
posted by GuyZero at 9:17 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Heck, my local Jack in the Box has been selling croissant donuts for the past couple of months.
posted by Hatashran at 9:20 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am anti-filling, so this could be promising, but then again, DD - ick. The absolute best version of this sort of thing I have ever had is the glazed croissant at Ashley's Pastry Shop in Dayton, Ohio (I would also list it in my top 2 or 3 must-do activities in Dayton, Ohio).
posted by naoko at 9:36 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Safeway's waffle-donuts are interesting but again, not really good enough to be notable. It's like a chewy cake batter in waffle form. I'm not sure quite what it is. But I'd probably eat a shoe with maple icing on it.
posted by GuyZero at 9:37 PM on October 29, 2014

I am disappointed that Chronuts have no time dilation properties.
posted by evilDoug at 9:39 PM on October 29, 2014 [16 favorites]

Tully's had them here in Seattle and they were awful. Just horrible.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:43 PM on October 29, 2014

Metafilter:anal about messy food and these combine all the goop leakage
posted by lalochezia at 9:57 PM on October 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

kk and Shipleys are like some one deep fried a stinky unwipped asshole, put on a ton of frosting and tried to pass it off as a donut. Dunkies4Life!
posted by humanfont at 9:58 PM on October 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Going To Maine: "Dunkin's Executive Chef Jeff Miller responded: "I've tried the product that you mention... I like ours better.""

Hey, fuck you, buddy.

Just jam some fukken cinnamon roll dough in a fukken waffle maker or wevs. I'm disrupting garbage food hacks here. maybe put some bacon or eggs in there too???
posted by boo_radley at 10:01 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cro No!
posted by dirigibleman at 10:01 PM on October 29, 2014

Just don't call it a you-know-what.

A deep-fried cow anus?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:08 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you didn't pay a guy to wait in line for an hour and a half to buy it for you, it's not a real cronut.
posted by whir at 10:17 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Are we copying a specific bakery in New York? The answer is no," says John Costello

That's right, they're copying SEVERAL bakeries. See, isn't advertising and PR( marketing is an entirely different thing that requires, like, math and stuff) fun!
posted by Yowser at 10:49 PM on October 29, 2014

Looks like we're hitting Peak Cronut. I've never had a cronut in my life and never desire too, so no news could be better than hearing that mainstream imitations are here.

I hate you, autocorrect.
posted by Yowser at 10:52 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/10/william-gibson-peripheral-vision-time-travel-interview

MJ: I'm curious about how a cronut, of all things, made it in there.

WG: I've never actually seen one, but last year there were lots of internet stories about people in Manhattan standing in lines around the block to get one of these fabulous hybrid 21st century pastries. So to have it turn up in this near future in a very undistinguished small town somewhere, in the equivalent of Tim Hortons, to me indicates that the trendy hipster cronut has found its way into the mainstream and became this sort of boring, Starbucks pastry that everyone takes for granted.
posted by anazgnos at 11:02 PM on October 29, 2014 [8 favorites]

Oh man i can't wait for cupcakes to become retro. In the meantime, I predict the hot trend for 2015 will be waiting 7 hours to buy a goddamn mandarin orange.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:05 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's fun to try to predict the next fad. I predict someone perfects a dye process for oils. Hello, neon French fries!
posted by Yowser at 11:25 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

i was just in boston which has this DD obsession, and there is exactly one DD in montreal (maybe two?), the DD in montreal has this amazing choclate covered jelly donut but the jelly is lemon, it made me profoundly happy last january, but i went into like 8 dd's in Boston--Jamica Plains, Orient Heights, Chinatown, Harvard Sqaure, and they had never heard of it.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:42 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know what goes into their "Innovation", but there's something about the fats DD uses in their products that I Just Don't Like. Even the 'creamer' has some mouthfeel weirdness going on. I mostly drink coffee black these days because calories, so it's not a really common thing for me, and I'll hit the local Stewart's 9.9 times out of 10, but every time I see them I have this 'eww' reaction, which this Cronut doubly prompts.
posted by mikelieman at 12:53 AM on October 30, 2014

My buns have no seeds
posted by JPD at 1:49 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Trolling Ansel is an established practice. One of Switzerland's largest grocery chains went ahead and trademarked "Cronut" in Switzerland last year, after noticing that he'd forgotten to trademark them here and arguing that he only produced them in tiny numbers in one overhyped bakery in New York anyway, so obviously he wasn't interested in making cronuts available to foreigners. Also, they'd tasted both and thought their recipe was better.

(they graciously abandoned the mark after he went ballistic and threatened legal action, and thus got even more press out of it.)
posted by effbot at 2:05 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Just don't call it a you-know-what.

A deep-fried cow anus?

Croatse?
posted by chavenet at 2:34 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

CROATOANut
posted by mean square error at 2:52 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

Why not just market them as a variation on the perrennial donut store staple: the french cruller?
posted by fairmettle at 3:11 AM on October 30, 2014

I for one will not be letting anyone deep-fry my Chromebook.
posted by pipeski at 3:25 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cronuts always struck me as the yupster version of "extreme food" culture; all the fat of a croissant plus all the sugar of a donut, but because it can only be bought at one bakery by people who know to show up early, it's not the same thing as eating a deep-fried Twinkie at the state fair like some redneck.
posted by kewb at 3:43 AM on October 30, 2014 [13 favorites]

Cronuts are passe. I had a Donnoli a few weeks ago (really), a donut filled with cannoli filling. Yum.
posted by jonmc at 4:16 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

a donut filled with cannoli filling

Oh god. You could put cannoli filling in a shoe and I'd eat it. A supermarket near me sells a tub of pretty serviceable filling; it's a dangerous thing.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:30 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

How is "a donut filled with cannoli filling" not a lobster tail, jonmc?
posted by wenestvedt at 4:33 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's a local bakery that has sold something similar, calling it a Doughsant, since not long after the original cronut craze. I can't say that they were a whole lot different from what I grew up calling a French Cruller donut. Done poorly, full of grease, done well, light & flaky.
posted by librarianamy at 4:38 AM on October 30, 2014

*deep voices slowly rising*
*Philip Glass soundtrack*

KRONUUTISQATSI
posted by oulipian at 4:42 AM on October 30, 2014 [13 favorites]

How is "a donut filled with cannoli filling" not a lobster tail

The dough's different, for a start. And around here, I mean I don't buy too many sfogliatelle, and a lot of the good Italian bakeries are closing, but a lot of the time the filling is pastry cream.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:43 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I feel sorry for all of you people who don't live in Indianapolis and therefore are not able to get donuts from Long's Bakery. Yes, I know. It's a facebook page. They take the effort they would have wasted on maintaining a web site and put it into making great donuts. They are the best donuts I've had anywhere. They're also reasonably priced. On Sunday, I bought two dozen assorted donuts, a banana nut muffin, a lemon danish and a chocolate chip cookie for less than $20.

They only take cash. The line on weekends is over half an hour long. It goes out the door and into the parking lot, which unusual for any store here. If you don't want to wait in line, you can call ahead. They'll have your still-warm donuts packed up and ready for you at the counter.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:46 AM on October 30, 2014

OH GOOD. I live near about three thousand Dunkins (this is Boston, after all) and a couple actually-good donut shops (sorry, Dunkin, you know I love you but it's the truth) and no one's donuted up a croissant yet. I think there are cronuts somewhere in the city, but it's not the kind of thing I'd go out of my way for. It is the kind of thing I'd try the cheapy chain version of on my way to work.

As an aside, I kind of wanted to name my son Duncan. "Who's he named after?" "The donut."
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:03 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

kk and Shipleys are like some one deep fried a stinky unwipped asshole, put on a ton of frosting and tried to pass it off as a donut. Dunkies4Life!

How do you live like this

I mean other than briefly
posted by middleclasstool at 5:30 AM on October 30, 2014

There have already been multiple cronut knockoffs in Boston, including at Whole Foods. It's just that for some reason they show up at grocery stores, cupcake stores, etc. instead of donut shops. Not sure why that is.

My favorite cronut-type item is the ABP CroisBun, which is far easier to eat than the cronut, but makes you hate yourself just as much. (And now available in pumpkin!)
posted by pie ninja at 5:32 AM on October 30, 2014

As an aside, I kind of wanted to name my son Duncan. "Who's he named after?" "The donut."

Our first daughter's short-list had Meadow Lark on it.
posted by mikelieman at 5:51 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dunkin Donuts barely qualify as actual donuts next to Shipley's or Krispy Kreme (KK are themselves hella overrated but not bad).

I'm so glad that Krispy Kreme flamed out so quickly and disappeared back to wherever they came from. Horrible sickeningly sweet chunks of nothing. I'm not a huge DD fan but if someone brings them in, I'll eat one.

Nothing compares to Orams of Beaver Falls, PA though. Pretty much the best donuts ever.
posted by octothorpe at 6:03 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

What a missed opportunity for Dunkin to advertise with the slogan "Eat D's 'nuts!"
posted by octobersurprise at 6:52 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

mikelieman: "Our first daughter's short-list had Meadow Lark on it."

Let me tell you about my son, Lando. No, not like Calrissian.
posted by boo_radley at 7:52 AM on October 30, 2014

"Lando Radley"? Doesn't quite scan as well as "Meadow Lark Lieman", does it?
posted by mikelieman at 8:11 AM on October 30, 2014

*deep voices slowly rising*
*Philip Glass soundtrack*

KRONUUTISQATSI
posted by oulipian at 4:42 AM on October 30 [5 favorites −] Favorite added! [!] [quote]

I am so sorry I have but one favorite to give this. Because it deserves ALL the favorites.
posted by chavenet at 9:14 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

What a missed opportunity for Dunkin to advertise with the slogan "Eat D's 'nuts!"
posted by octobersurprise at 6:52 AM on October 30 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!] [quote]

Or they could have simply gone with cnuts.
posted by chavenet at 9:15 AM on October 30, 2014

the north sea empire shall rise again
posted by poffin boffin at 9:23 AM on October 30, 2014

Since we're sharing Dunkin Donuts stories, a DD in Puerto Rico had guava filled donuts.
posted by exhilaration at 9:26 AM on October 30, 2014

Metafilter Runs on Dunkin. I think I shall make t-shirts.
posted by humanfont at 9:42 AM on October 30, 2014

Never had a cronut, so I technically can't be disappointed, but I'm disappointed Dunkin Donuts is doing this.

Is Dunkin Donuts different in its home region? I ask as a cake donut fan in the South. Krispy Kreme is dominant so I was excited when a DD opened. But I was let down by their stale, dry, flavorless donuts.
posted by Monochrome at 11:01 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I ask as a cake donut fan

I see the problem here.
posted by cooker girl at 12:00 PM on October 30, 2014

Is Dunkin Donuts different in its home region?

No, it's rubbish here in New England, too, but like people who grew up drinking iron-heavy well water or something, they just don't notice it. So sayeth a transplant.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:07 PM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

So now that Nas is rapping over J Dilla's Donuts, I hope the album is appropriately titled, Nas - Cronuts.
posted by p3t3 at 5:03 PM on October 30, 2014

I see the problem here.

NO DISSIN' THE CAKE DONUT. They're harder to get right, and a poor one is worthless. But a good cake donut is a very good thing; and a reliable indicator of a good shop.

Buttermilk, ditto.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:41 PM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Buttermilk donuts are the only kind my husband (a cake donut enthusiast) and I (a fluffy donut lover) can agree on. So delicious.

A place near us had just started making flavored buttermilk drops and they are wondrous.
posted by Night_owl at 9:05 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

OK, so they're out early here in RI. They're more than twice as expensive as regular donuts - $2.50! Being a sucker for a gimmick, I bought one when I got my morning iced tea, and took two bites.

It's like a dense cruller, which is stupid, because crullers are delicious because they're airy and delicate. Also heavier than their croissants, probably because they're deep fried and sugar-glazed. Also, since I'm not supposed to have fats, sugars or overly dense food, my stomach hurts and my head's spinning a little bit. It's like a hangover without the blackout the night before. Not worth it for this.

Now, an original recipe cruller with maple frosting? That would be worth it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:03 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]