Dominique Ansel Finally Knows What a Good Cookie Is

Even if you don’t know Dominique Ansel by name, you know his work. As the father of the Cronut, the James Beard Award-Winning French pastry chef was arguably the first culinary professional to watch in amazement as his creation “went viral”—a new phenomenon in 2013. Over a decade has passed, and Ansel is still serving Cronuts in his various bakeries around the world, along with Chocolate Chip Cookie Milk Shots, Frozen S’mores, DKAs, and classic treats like madeleines.

In a recent episode of Milk Street Radio, he sat down with Chris Kimball to discuss the chaos of his most famous creation, the challenge of balancing presentation with technique, and the one baked good America does better than France.

Read excerpts from the interview below and listen to the full episodehere.

On the overwhelming madness of the Cronut

When the cronut happened it was hard to digest, no pun intended...and it happened very organically at the time. You remember, it was like 2013, I only had four employees, and had made this pastry as a special for the weekend...and randomly, a friend of ours, Hugh from Grub Street, walked by to snap a photo of it and put it on his blog. [They] still had blogs at the time, and he had to call me the same day and explain to me that his article went viral. Putting things in perspective: [This] was just the beginning of social media, food going viral, something going viral. Like, “I'm happy for you. Your article went viral.” [Hugh was] like, “No, you don't understand. We had an increase of traffic of 300% and over 140,000 linked to the same article in just a couple hours. This thing is huge. Be ready. You're going to get busy this weekend.” Like, “Oh sure, yeah. I made, like, 35 today. I'm going to make 45 tomorrow.” Little did I know.

By day three, we had over 150 people line up before we even opened the shop. And I couldn't understand what happened from there. It just went crazier and crazier and crazier. We had live television reporting outside of the bakery every morning, filming the line, and the line just kept on growing and growing. People would come as early as two o'clock in the morning, lining up on the sidewalk. They were arguing about who was here first. The neighbors were calling the the police because they were so loud. It was madness. It was so overwhelming.

On balancing presentation with technique (and social media)

A great croissant is always a sign of a good bakery and good baker. And then there's the other side, you know, where you still want the experience the Frozen S’mores and things like this, things that reach people. There's a lot in between. I think nowadays it's a little tricky, because people do focus a lot on social media, and they want to be seen. They want to be known. And they start creating for social media, and they forget who they are. They forget their style. They forget why they do what they do, and the food becomes weird. It shouldn't be this way. I think you still need a story. You still need a meaning behind the food you create, and you still need to do it for the people who are going to eat it. I saw once this girl in the bakery. I was sad. I was like a little hurt. She bought one of our pastries. She took a photo of it, a few photos. She turned around, she took a few selfies with it, and she trashed it. She walked away.

On cultivating a better culture in the kitchen

It's maybe easy to say, but you win hearts, not arguments. So, it doesn't matter how much you want to put pressure on people, you want to yell and scream. I hate all of this. I lived through those kitchens. I hate all of it. And if you get to people's heart, if you reach out to them the right way, and you show them that you have the right interest, growing them, teaching them, changing them as a chef, regardless of the pressure, regardless of the stress of the job, regardless of the challenges they're facing, they will trust us. They'll trust you. They will stay with you, and they will believe in you. It seems easier to scream, to yell and to walk away than to spend the time to correct people, to tell them the second time, third time. “Hey, this is what we do. This is why we do it. This is the reason behind it.” And for you to put the effort into teaching, explaining the craft and science and everything that goes behind everything we bake and we cook, it's much harder to be nice and to teach than it is to like, scream and yell and walk away. Always easier to scare people in the kitchen. Always easier to raise your voice. It's not the right thing to do.

On the ultimate cookie

My ultimate cookie is something warm out of the oven like every American kid. I can say that now I understand and I know what a good cookie is. I grew up in France, where we had no clue what a good cookie is. I remember the cookies when I was kid. There were just a few in a pastry case. They were dry. They were flat. They were not good at all. French people don't eat cookies. Coming to America, the first time I actually judged a cookie competition, I was impressed because there were probably like 20 people entering the competition. And I see people running last-minute with fresh baked cookies and putting them on the table. I was like, “Oh, they're late.” They were not late. They were strategic. They were serving warm cookies, right? So much better than the cold cookie. They were very smart, actually, because no matter what you do, if it's a warm cookie it always does better.

It's fascinating to me because, again, I didn't know the culture of cookies and what it takes to make a good cookie, but now I understand. [It's] bringing [you] back to the nostalgia of being a kid. I always ask people, “What is the first thing you've ever done in the kitchen?” Ninety-five percent of people will answer me — it's something sweet. It's a pie, it's a cookie. It's a pound cake I made with my mom, my grandma. And it's amazing, because people are always scared of baking. It was so simple and so easy and so comforting, because they always had mom or grandma baking with them, guiding them step-by-step. That's why I always make it as simple as possible...so people feel almost like they're baking with their mom or their grandma.

Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.