Australian pastry chef Kate Reid is credited with creating the first known cruffin.
A cruffin is a hybrid of a croissant and a muffin. It is made from laminated croissant dough, shaped or portioned for a muffin tin, baked, and commonly filled with cream, jam, curd or pastry cream. Its name is a portmanteau combining “croissant” and “muffin.”
The first known cruffin is associated with Reid and Lune Croissanterie in Melbourne, Australia, in 2013. Lune created the pastry for Everyday Coffee in Melbourne, making Reid’s name central to the origin story. This is why the answer is Kate Reid rather than Dominique Ansel, whose better-known hybrid invention is the Cronut.
The cruffin later became especially famous through Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in San Francisco. Australian pastry chef Ry Stephen and co-owner Aaron Caddel popularised it there in 2014. The bakery’s version helped turn the cruffin into an international social-media pastry, but popularisation is different from credit for the first known creation.