Cruffin crime caper: Australian baker's recipes stolen from San Francisco bakery

It takes three days to make a cruffin, a muffin-croissant hybrid that is the signature of Ry Stephen, a 28-year-old Australian pastry chef. His San Francisco shop, Mr Holmes Bakehouse, has been open three months and inspired a wild following, with customers lining up early to buy the ice-cream-cone-shaped cruffins, which reliably sell out before the line is gone.

"It creates its own frenzy," said Rebecca Flint Marx, editor of San Francisco Magazine's food section, who noted that cruffins are not only a cult item - and at $4.50, relatively affordable - but also camera-ready, as photos on Instagram attest. Fillings include caramel, strawberry milkshake or Fluffernutter (peanut butter and marshmallow) cream, depending on Stephen's mood.

Now, the tempting sweet may have inspired a crime. Overnight recently, a thief stole the recipe for cruffins, and Stephen's 230 other recipes, from binders in the bakery's kitchen. Nothing else in the store was touched: not money, valuable baking equipment, an iPad or other computers. Stephen has copies of the recipes on his office computer, and while the store opened almost on time the next morning, he was understandably upset.

"It sickens me a bit," he said.

In a food-crazy city where every consumer is a Yelp critic, the theft of the recipes - which the police are investigating - inflamed the demand for cruffins, the West Coast's answer to New York's cronut. (Both have croissant bases but are shaped differently, and a cronut is fried, while a cruffin is baked). The news of the missing cruffin recipe struck some people as just another reason to visit Stephen's bakery.

"If someone stole it, it's got to be good," said Ashley Edwards, a restaurant manager who was waiting in line.

James Binauhan, a political consultant, said he was there because he had seen friends' Instagram and Snapchat pictures. "They made it seem like eating a cruffin was a goal in life," he said.

Stephen, an Australian who trained in Paris, said that whoever filched the cruffin recipe would find it of limited value. The recipe does not describe Stephen's technique of making the dough (Day 1), buttering and repeatedly folding the dough (Day 2), and then baking the pastries (Day 3). Nor does it say that the butter must be imported from Isigny-sur-Mer, France (although this article does).

Stephen does not think it was an inside job. He said he trusts his employees and has told them, "You can have any recipe you want, provided you know how to execute it." Plus a new surveillance system had been installed, but was not yet operational, although the employees did not know that.

As for competitors, he is less certain.

"There is a spirit of learning among pastry chefs," he said. But, "there are always one or two who are trying to take everything and not give back," he said. "That part disappoints me."

The recipe theft was noticed at 3am on February 27, when Sarah Auger, a pastry-maker from Vermont who came here to join the food movement, reported to work and saw that the front door to the store was unlocked. A co-worker opened one of the kitchen's black binders looking for the recipe for cardamom apple scones, but it was empty. The two searched the four other recipe binders, and all their pages were missing, too. At 3:15am, Auger texted Stephen, who was sleeping: "Hey, sorry to bother you, but do you have recipes? None of them are in the binders, and we need the scone recipe."

Stephen woke up, read the text and rushed to the bakery.

"I'd locked the door the night before, that's for sure," he recalled.

Once in his shop, he reached for the binders.

"I could feel they were empty," he said.

Someone called the police, but Stephen had pastries to tend.

"I knew that at 7am there was going to be a line of people who don't want to hear any excuses," he said.

He began egg-washing some croissants.

Before the shop opened, an officer walked through the kitchen, examined the empty binders and questioned Auger. The officer took the matter seriously, Stephen said.

"Burglaries happen pretty often in San Francisco," said Grace Gatpandan, a spokeswoman for the Police Department, adding that she could not recall another crime involving recipes. She said the police would examine nearby security cameras for leads on cars and individuals.

As for a suspect, she said, "We don't have a particular demographic, except it's someone who wants to make a really delicious pastry."

Mr Holmes Bakehouse - named for Stephen's mother's cat, Sherlock Holmes - has already distinguished itself beyond the cruffin. There is, for example, Stephen's savoury California croissant, stuffed with salmon, nori, ginger and wasabi.

On a recent Monday, Stephen started filling a batch of 85 cruffins, which sold out as soon as they went up for sale.

"It is easier for 100 people to stand in line for cruffins than it is to make 100 cruffins," he said.

The New York Times