Made in China: The Sweet Spot Creates Its Own Cronut

In a city where egg tarts and red bean pastries once ruled, the cronut has arrived. This mutant pastry hybrid of a croissant and a donut has but a single purveyor here in Beijing, largely unknown and tucked away in the basement of China World Mall. The Sweet Spot has created its very own cronut, or so it thinks it has. Although I have yet to try the real Dominique Ansel legit cronut, I was highly skeptical about this new Made in China product. Still salivating for the original Spring Street cronut, after rounding out the cronut imposters of the world on Google, my nutty taste buds led me to The Sweet Spot.

Some background: donut enthusiasts wake up at almost-the crack of dawn to visit Ansel’s NYC bakery, in lines that round for blocks. Ansel only makes 2-300 daily and limits each person to two cronuts, meaning only about 100 of the 400 in line are able to obtain a cronut at the price of five dollars. Maybe that's why they are being sold by secondary parties for more than twice the original price. Past flavors have included rose vanilla and lemon maple. This month’s flavor is blackberry.

According to the people over at Serious Eats in New York, the real cronut tastes like this: "The experience of eating a cronut is very different from eating a traditional doughnut. For one thing, the cream is evenly distributed among the dozens of pasty layers...The extra layers also mean more oil-dough contact, so it's a more oily pastry similar to a fritter—a deep-fried dessert lover's dream.”

The Sweet Spot’s Cronut

The Sweet Spot claims that their cronut is a “crispy croissant crossover soft doughnut, filled with pastry cream and topped with chocolate sauce and chopped peanuts.” At first glance from the website photo their cronut looked like a Haoliyou pie. Before trying their cronut I asked if they had different flavors, but apparently there is only one flavor.

Biting into the cronut I tasted the chocolate on top, which really looked more like nougat and tasted like Nutella. A deeper bite, and the flakes of the croissant were unveiled, including a sweet creamy inside. Although the sweetness level of the cronut was just right, the downside of the cronut was that the insides were a little too runny as well as the topping on the outside. I also wasn’t a big fan of the nuts on top.

On a scale of five this cronut would probably be a two and a half. It was definitely too small and petite to be considered delicious, about two times smaller than the average donut. According to The Sweet Spot, they only make 10 per day (and I thought 100 was too little?), they sell out quickly and have customers coming in daily to buy them, but I started to get the feeling that these cronuts were not as popular, because some of the people working the counter had no idea what a cronut was. It’s seen more as a secondary delight to the cakes and macaroons that they already provide.

Nonetheless, I was excited to try this transPacific treat. For now the citizens of New York continue to revel in Ansel’s cronut, while the rest of the world waits for their city to make one just as good.

Try to try them for yourself at The Sweet Spot, EB118, B1/F, China World Mall, 1 Jianguomenwai Dajie, 国贸商城一期B1楼EB118店铺. Phone, 6505-0885.

Photo: Foxnews.com