Moving to a new city, you always hear about “the” things that a person needs to try. I’m always skeptical. I always hear about people queuing up for hours to eat at places or to buy an egg custard tart, but time is precious, and I don’t want to wait awhile to find out that I’ve wasted my time. The Cruffin from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse is one of those things you hear about people waiting for. I mean I’ve thought about trying to go wait in line. I’ve looked at people’s suggestions. Apparently 8:15 am is a good time to show up in order to get a Cruffin when they finally release them at 9:00. I thought I could do that. But do I really want to leave the house that early? I mean my bed has a lot going for it.
But what is a Cruffin anyway? Much like Dominique Ansel’s Cronut, the Cruffin is a hybrid pastry. However, instead of combining a croissant with a donut, the Cruffin is a hybrid between a croissant and a muffin. Once it’s baked, it’s filled with a creamy, flavored filling. The filling changes regularly, so there’s always something interesting to try.
So did I wait in line for an hour for a Cruffin? My Cruffin experience starts when I headed to You Say Tomato, a British goods store, on my hunt for Marmite (and other British goods hard to find in the US). Sadly, their hours had changed so they were closed on the day that I came by. Since that gave me quite a bit of free time, I thought I’d head a few blocks down Larkin Street to check out the bakery and take my chances. It turns out that a Wednesday in January is not the most popular time for Cruffin queuing, and there were actually quite a few available sitting there staring me in the face. The Cruffin was mine! So was the sausage roll that was sitting there as well, because if I wasn’t going to be able to buy some British goods, I may as well get something traditionally British.
I was in and out in just a few minutes. I still had some time before meeting a friend, so I found a park and dug into the Cruffin. First of all, it’s really hard to eat. There was filling squirting out on my face and cinnamon sugar sprinkles falling all over my arm. Besides the messiness, the Cruffin itself was really tasty. I was worried about the filling/pastry ratio, but it definitely was the right amount. Weirdly though, there was nothing that really made me feel like it was muffin-like at all. Except the shape. Maybe that’s the only hybridness about it.
And later in the evening I had my sausage roll. I did reheat it in the oven so it was nice and warm, but it probably would have been better if I ate it at the time of purchase. Although, I don’t know how much better considering there was way too much salt on it. Which is kind of sad, as the sausage itself was tasty, but the salt sprinkled on top really killed it for me.
Is the Cruffin worth the queue? I don’t know. It’s a really tasty pastry, but I’m not convinced it is tastier than any other croissant I’ve had. It’s definitely better than the cronut I had in London, so I suppose there is that. I just don’t think it’s worth an hour of my life… But hey if you’re in the neighborhood and they happen to have one, why not give it a try?
Mr. Holmes Bakehouse
1042 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94109
