There's nothing quite like Dominique Ansel's original instant-classic Cronut™, a croissant-doughnut mashup first born a few months ago at the pastry chef's namesake bakery in New York's Soho district. But that doesn't mean bakeries and doughnut shops around L.A. haven't tried their best to capture the uniqueness of Ansel's creation by using similar techniques, ingredients, and methods. In the end, while they're not Cronuts, some of them get mighty close. Here's a rundown of twelve knockoffs around the city.
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12 Cronut Copycats Around Los Angeles, Mapped

Semi Sweet Bakery
This Downtown bakery calls this the Crullant, which means that it's baked instead of fried and glazed without a filling. So, while it takes some inspiration from Ansel's original, it's pretty different in terms of execution.
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Frances Bakery & Coffee
This Little Tokyo bakery was also one of the earlier entrants to the copycat game, with croissant dough rolled into a doughnut and then flavored with chocolate, strawberry, lemon cream, or just plain cream.
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DK's Donuts & Bakery
DK's Donuts in Santa Monica was pretty shameless about how they took the concept of the cronut, even naming their creation DKronut before getting a cease and desist from Dominique Ansel. Now they're called the DK Double-Decker O-Nut. Not as good of a name, but if you want to try something uber-fried and filled with cream, this might be a good place to start. The oil tends to be less clean than other places, but the toppings are pretty creative. Note, these are made every day, throughout the day.
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Tony's Donut House
This Huntington Park donut shop thinks that it can get away with spelling their version, CroNut. Then they started calling it the Cravenut. And finally, just D'Crave. But there's a near endless variety of the still blatant knockoff, with nutella marshmallow, bananatella, cinnamon and sugar, and more.
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ConfeXion Cupcakes
This weekend-only special from this cupcakery makes something called a brioghnut, using brioche dough as a base and then deep frying the donut-shaped pastry before covering with sugar or topping with maple glaze and bacon. Arguably one of the better copycats out there.
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SK's Donuts & Croissants
This 24-hour Mid-City donut shop has very good ordinary donuts, but their "cronuts," which can be ordered and picked up within an hour or so, are pretty hefty and unrefined. But just out of the frier, it's hard to think of a better junk-food version of the knockoff. The simple custard one is the best.
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3 Square Café + Bakery
This Venice bakery makes a daily selection of croissant-donut hybrids, like chocolate and raspberry jam.
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Sweets For The Soul
This cheerful Atwater bakery calls their version their Cronot, making a plain version, cinnamon sugar, and a stuffed version with cream and fresh, organic strawberries. Only available on Fridays and Saturdays starting around 1 p.m.
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Kettle Glazed Doughnuts
These so-called croughnuts are pretty true to the original, with a combined dough of puff and croissant pastry that's then allowed to rise before going into the fryer. Generally put out around the mid-morning, they tend to sell out quickly.
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Paris Baguette
The copycat here is downright shameless, with a similar lemon glaze and cream filling, but they're only $3 a pop. At this location, they normally start serving Kronuts (as they call them) from 12-3 p.m.
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California Donuts
This shop in Ktown does a pretty cheap rendition of the cronut, without as much layering or complexity as the other knockoffs, but they make up for it with more creative toppings, like the speculoos crunch, made with pretzels.
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Spudnuts Donuts
The Valley donut shop is making the doughssant, which cost $3 and come in varieties such as custard cream, Nutella glaze, or powdered sugar.
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