Can Cristina Ferrare kill the Cronut craze?

The nation’s appetite for Cronuts seems to know no bounds. But it looks like Cristina Ferrare may be able to help with that. [UPDATED: An earlier version of this story misspelled Cristina]

Sure, Wednesday morning — as every morning in recent memory — there were probably hundreds of people waiting in line outside of Manhattan’s Dominique Ansel Bakery in hopes of procuring one of the little pastries made from fried croissant dough.

But will they be there Thursday after they read Ferrare’s take on the Cronut, developed with the help of Hayley Christopher, chef of the Hallmark Channel’s “Home & Family” show?

Here’s how they make theirs — you’ll notice it’s probably a quite different technique than the one used by Ansel, a celebrated pastry chef even before the whole Cronut thing took off.

You start with a tube of refrigerated crescent roll dough, brush with cinnamon sugar and butter, par-bake to puff, then fry and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar again.

Still hungry? And you thought the Cronut was something fancy!

Just for the sake of completeness, here’s Ferrare and Christopher’s recipe, verbatim. This was NOT tested in the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.

CRONUTS

Recipe by “Home & Family” Chef Hayley Christopher

1 tube of any refrigerated crescent roll dough

cinnamon sugar (1 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon cinnamon)

1 stick melted butter

4 cups vegetable oil (for frying)

Unwrap the dough and separate it into four square sections, fixing the perforations with fingers.

Brush three sections with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. Stack the dough squares with plain square on top.

Roll it out then brush with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar mix on top. Fold the dough over and roll it out again.

Cut circles with a biscuit cutter. Let the dough circles sit for 20 minutes.

Par bake the dough circles at 400 degrees for five minutes, until Cronuts puff up. Set them aside to cool.

To fry

Heat the vegetable oil to medium heat.

Fry the Cronuts for 60 to 90 seconds, until golden brown. Place them on a paper towel to drain.

While warm, roll Cronuts in cinnamon sugar mix.

If desired, pipe in whipped cream.

Enjoy!