On the Cronut’s 10th Birthday, Dominique Ansel Las Vegas Debuts Ice Cream Pastries

It was ten years ago that Dominique Ansel first nailed the recipe for the Cronut, a dessert that would soon develop a cult following for its flaky layers, surprising fillings, and satisfyingly layered frostings in flavors of raspberry, ube, pistachio, and chocolate. One decade after he sold the first croissant-doughnut hybrid, he’s in Las Vegas at the newest location of his namesake bakery to debut a celebratory selection of treats that include a new Cronut flavor, a limited-time selection of Cronut holes, and a summer collection of artfully designed Cronuts that are inspired by ice cream truck novelties.

Janna Karel

“It was painful,” Ansel says of the road to making the Cronut. “Three months to develop one recipe is a lot of time. I wanted it to be perfect.” Ansel recalls a blogger who visited the bakery at that time and posted a photo of the Cronut to Grubstreet. The following morning, the tiny New York bakery of just four employees had a line of 350 people snaking around the building, hoping to get their hands on the new dessert. “Everyone was panicking,” says Ansel. “We didn’t know how to deal with so many people.”

Now, a decade later — and just months after opening a Dominique Ansel at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip, Ansel is introducing new confections. For the Las Vegas bakery only, a cronut with pistachio filling and strawberry rhubarb icing will be available throughout the month of May. And Cronut holes will be available May 5 through 7. The fluffy three-bite sugar-dusted doughnuts are filled with a greatest-hits selection of fillings like ube coconut, hibiscus raspberry, and honey yogurt lime.

Janna Karel

The French baker is also debuting new pastries in May, all inspired by summertime ice cream treats. “One will look like a banana split. But it’s pastry,” says Ansel. It will have chocolate and banana flavors. Other pastries will look like and have flavors inspired by strawberry Japenese-style shaved ice, a popsicle with orange and yuzu flavors, and a chocolate ice cream sandwich. He plans to turn the pastry display case into an ice cream truck. Ansel’s other signature pastries, including croissants, popular caramelized croissants —Dominique’s Kouign Amann, and frozen s’mores are still available.

Janna Karel