The Cronut turns 10: A look at the sweet little pastry that started a ‘revolution’

It’s rare that a French pastry chef requires private security. But for Dominique Ansel, it was an absolute necessity.

“I had to push them back, almost like physically, and ask them to wait in line,” he said.

It wasn’t Ansel himself people were clamoring for, but the 3-inch, cream-filled, flaky pastry that he invented 10 years ago this May, known as the Cronut, a portmanteau of croissant and doughnut.

The tiny creation — forged in Ansel’s 100 square foot kitchen in SoHo in 2013 — would generate an international furor, a David and Goliath trademark war with huge conglomerates, a Harvard Business Review case study in entrepreneurship and a small baking empire for Ansel himself.

A decade on, Ansel is a bona fide celebrity in the food industry and he says the pastry has changed his life forever — though not always for the better.