Behind the Bake: The Lemon Meringue Cronut

There’s a reason we keep bringing it back.

Our limited-edition Lemon Meringue Cronut is one of those unforgettable pastries customers ask for when it’s not around, until popular demand brings it back. Not because we talk it up. Because once you’ve had the tart curd against the soft custard and that toasted meringue on laminated pastry, you remember it.

This is a look at how it gets made and why it only shows up when our pastry team can give it the time it needs.

What it is

Volare's signature cronut, filled with silky vanilla custard and tangy lemon curd, finished with lightly toasted Italian meringue.

A celebration of taste and texture. Bright lemon. Fresh custard. Crisp, layered pastry. Nothing extra for the sake of it.

It is limited. It is in-store. And when the season's up, it’s gone until the next run.

Two-Day Make

Pastry Manager Bryar puts it plainly: “There’s a lot of steps. The dough has 24 hours of fermentation, and the cronut takes two days to make.”

The dough is laminated and left to ferment overnight. The rest gives the pastry its lift and the flavour that sits under the filling, the same slow approach we take with bread, applied to a laminated dough.

Day two is assembly. Custard and curd are made in-house, using local ingredients like Waikato Canary Butter. The cronut is filled, then topped with Italian meringue and toasted to finish. Pastry Supervisor Hashi runs the bench on this one. It is not a product you rush out between other jobs.

If it feels like a lot of work for something that disappears before lunch, that’s because it is. The work is what makes it so good.

Eggs From Down The Road

Every egg in our bakery comes from Kaimai Eggs, a family farm in the Kaimai foothills. On the Lemon Meringue Cronut they show up four times: in the dough, the curd, the custard, and the meringue.

We have used Kaimai Eggs for years because they are traceable, consistent, and close to home. When a pastry relies this heavily on eggs, the farm matters. And you can taste the difference in a curd that sets cleanly and a meringue that holds.

How To Eat It

In the store, with a coffee, while it’s still got a bit of warmth in the meringue.

A regular piece of advice from people who have already had the pleasure of indulging: don’t eat it whilst driving. They are generous with the filling, and filling does what filling does: it oozes out. Sit down with a napkin.

If you want the short version from the people who keep coming back: “elite.” “Cannot recommend these enough.” One customer ate three and regretted none. We are not going to argue with that.

Where To Find It

This mega pastry, big enough to share, is available in Volare stores: Main Bakery, Cambridge, Greenhill, Grey Street, and Te Awamutu, plus the weekend markets when the pastry team can send them. Find a store.

It isn’t available online. Cronuts don’t travel the way a loaf does, and this one is finished to order in the cabinet. So come in and find out what all the fuss is about.