Dessert Craziness UPDATE: The Wonut

Do you remember the Cronut? That cross between a Croissante and a Doughnut? Touted for all of ten minutes on the big wide Web as the next big dessert trend? Well, the Sugar-Fat-Dough purveyors have some additional idiotic ideas for products they want to convince you to buy at premium prices…

Another baby Wonut comes into the world…

Following in the footsteps – or grease drips – of the Cronut comes the Wonut. The thing (one version of which is pictured above) is a deep-fried Waffle dipped in Doughnut Glaze or Icing and topped with… Just about anything you can think of. It’s the brainchild of Waffles Café in Chicago, IL, and that’s just the start of their broad selection of wild and crazy ‘gourmet Waffle’ creations.

While our backs were turned…

Oh! By the way… I somehow missed the Crookie in passing. That’s a Double Stuff Oreo baked inside a Croissante. Really.

Then, there’s the Doughscuit – a Baking Soda Biscuit with a hole in the middle, deep fried and dipped in Doughnut Glaze. Missed that one as it flew past, too. Can’t say as I’m upset over that, either.

These unlikely concoctions are both precursors of a sort of the Wonut.

Waffle shenanigans already proliferating

But the Wonut seems to herald a new turn in the Dippy Dessert road: Interest is apparently turning from Doughnuts toward Waffles.

For a start, the folks at Waffles Café have already branched out into beverages – in a way – with the Waffogato, a waffle-based version of the Italian dessert drink, the Affogato. The Waffle version features Ice Cream laced with Belgian Waffle bits and moulded into the shape of a waffle. (Just put the waffle iron plates in the freezer overnight before commencing production.) It’s served in an Italian coffee glass smothered with shot of Maple-flavoured Espresso. According to its inventor, the whole mess melts into a milkshake-like ‘treat’. I don’t know. I just don’t know…

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UPDATE: Waffles Café is in hot water over its whacky Waffogatto! Seems a California bistro is claiming the idea is an ingredient-for-ingredient rip-off of a treat they invented some time ago, called the Wafflegatto. As my dear old granny used to say, nutty minds are the Devil’s playground…

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Stop the Madness!

As I’ve said before, many times, this kind of culinary mash-up is just a desperate attempt by restauranteurs in overcrowded niches to raise their profiles above the noise. Better to do something really different or to bring something to your community that has stood the tests of time and tradition elsewhere but never been seen where you live. Like the break-out of Mexican and Tex-Mex food from the U.S. Southwest a few decades ago, Southeast Asian food a little later, and more recently, the rise in popularity of Caribbean and South American food…

Then you get to be a true trend-setter – not just a flash-in-the-pan fad-ster!

The Moral(s) to this story…

1. Human beings are the only species that does things just because they can.

2. People will do anything to get your attention.

3. The stuff that tastes best is usually the worst for us, dietarily.

~ Maggie J.