My Favorite San Francisco Dessert: Chounuts

Donut…or cream puffs? It’s dessert-ception. First off, I’m really not that big a fan of donuts, I find them too sweet and dense, and basically 2 bites will fill me up–so not my ideal dessert. When I saw this sugary guy in the display of the Lower Haight’s tiny French bakery Choux Pastry, I wrote it off at first.

Passion fruit & dark chocolate donut-shaped cream puff <3

But then I saw that it had passion fruit–one of my favorite things on earth to eat…so I asked the 2 lovely ladies working there what kind of donut this was. They responded simply with, “It’s not a donut! It’s a cream puff, shaped like a donut.” They call them “chounuts”–I was floored. My friend and I ended up ordering 5 of the pseudo-donuts “chounuts” and a 6-pack of the mini cream puffs. The cream puff pastries (that actually look like what they’re advertised as) were so adorable. We chose a variety of different flavors and I immediately did an impromptu photoshoot on the chairs they had in the tiny shop.

All of them were delicious, although my favorite mini cream puff flavor was raspberry (berries & cream). They change up their “featured flavors” weekly, so there’s always something new to try! Chounuts were about ~$5 each, and I think the mini cream puffs were $15 for a 6-pack. Not the cheapest goodies, but worth the splurge to try once, and treat yourself every once in awhile if you fall in love with them like I did!

Address: 248 Fillmore St, San Francisco (Lower Haight)
Hours: Sat-Sun, 10:30am-7pm / Tues-Fri, 11:30am-7pm (Closed Mondays)
Visit their website!