Dominique Ansel Turns A 2024 Color Of The Year Into First Vegan Cronut
Image via Sherwin-Williams / PR Newswire
Sherwin-Williams is celebrating its 2024 Color of the Year, ‘Upward’, by cooking up a treat that’s both visual and edible. The wall paint giant has teamed up with the world-famous Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City—the home of the croissant-doughnut hybrid—to create the bakery’s first-ever vegan Cronut.
Described as a serene shade of blue, Upward embodies the tranquility of pausing, taking a deep breath, and clearing one’s mind. The hue “represents the gentle forward momentum in all of our lives,” explains Sue Wadden, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams, adding that the hue evokes a “sunny day energy” filled with contentment and serenity.
To give fans a taste of this buoyancy, Sherwin-Williams turned to renowned French pastry chef and Cronut inventor Dominique Ansel to elevate Upward into the first-ever original vegan Cronut.
Filled with coconut riz au lait (rice pudding) that’s infused with naturally-flavored tea from the Butterfly Pea Flower from Southeast Asia, the all-vegan pastry captures the color and spirit of Upward.
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The dessert is topped with hand-glazed fondant, which, coupled with the blue botanical, promises a hint of bliss and wellbeing with a dash of sweetness.
Sherwin-Williams’ 2024 Color of the Year, Upward, painted on the wall of a room. Image via Sherwin Williams / PR Newswire
Ansel remarks that the vegan version of the Cronut has been an exciting challenge. He notes that the pastry aims to bring balance and lightness to his patrons while encouraging them to find inspiration in unexpected places.
“Creating a vegan version of the Cronut has always intrigued me—we’re always looking for forward-thinking ways to create new pastries, and this collaboration was a natural opportunity to do so,” says Ansel. “At first glance, Upward SW 6239 draws up a sense of balance and lightness for me; it’s the same feeling I wanted to impart into our very first vegan flavor.”
The pastry chef elaborates: “We sourced a butterfly pea flower tea which naturally imparts a soft blue shade into the filling, paired with a creamy coconut riz au lait, all while preserving the light and flaky layers that are signature to our pastry.”
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For those hoping to steal a bite, sadly, this Cronut has rolled off the counter at Ansel’s bakery in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. The limited-edition flavor was sold for only three days in late September.
[via Bake Magazine and FoodSided, images via various sources]
This article was crafted with assistance from an AI engine, and has been manually reviewed & edited.
