Happy Valentine's Day all you beautiful folk out there! Whether you are spending it wallowing in bouquets and love letters, or out looking for someone to kiss, or home doing not much at all (or home baking like a maniac, then rewarding yourself with steak and chips, like me...) it is, at the very least, a fantastic excuse to make something ridiculously delicious, ridiculously pink and very heart shaped. So here's a recipe.
These are basically croissant-doughnut love children. I can't use the word C**nut because it's been mega-TMed, so I'll call these Cronies. Because they're smaller than the original, and also because the urban dictionary defines Cronie as "a follower, not a leader. The opposite of a hustla" and these are definitely little followers of the famous Cronut... An illustrative example given is:
I'm a hustla homie,
you a customer, cronie.
(Jay-Z)
Ok, so now we are all on the same page...
Cherry, Rose & Vanilla Cronies
Recipe adapted from the marvellous Boy Who Bakes
makes about 10 heart shaped cronies
Although these aren't especially difficult to make, they do have many different aspects and take over 24 hours to sort out, so bear that in mind before embarking. If you do set out on the long road to heaven, however, you'll be extremely glad... First up is the dough. This needs to rest in the fridge twice - once overnight - so start the afternoon of the day before you want to eat them!
For the dough:
60ml milk - body temp
65ml water - body temp
6g dry active yeast
125g plain flour
125g strong bread flour
30g caster sugar
.5tsp salt
150g unsalted butter
To fry:
500ml oil - rapeseed or groundnut
Mix together the milk, water and yeast and set aside. In a larger bowl mix the flours, salt and sugar. Cut the butter into chunks about 2cm square, and using a pastry cutter blend them into the flour/sugar mix very briefly - you want to see large 1cm-ish chunks of butter, so don't go making it into breadcrumbs. Once the butter is combined, add the milk/water/yeast mix and combine with a spatula, then knead with your hands briefly to form a ball of dough. It's essential the butter stays cold and chunky throughout, so only the bare minimum of hand-touching please. Titillating, I know... Now pop the ball of dough back in the bowl, cover with cling film and put into the fridge for a few hours - I'd say minimum 4. At this stage, if you can, make all the other bits & bobs: