New York is the birthplace of many cult pastry items that have inspired chefs around Melbourne. Dominique Ansel’s croissant-doughnut hybrid cronuts were re-created by Adriano Zumbo and renamed Zonuts. The crullers legendary pastry chef Claudia Fleming popularised at Daily Provisions inspired Kate Reid to open Moon Cruller. And now, the mini-croissant breakfast cereal created by bakers Gautier and Ashley Coiffard of L'Appartement 4F in Brooklyn, has inspired Jonathan Camilleri of JC Patisserie Boulangerie in Abbotsford to re-create the tiny treats.

The Coiffards’ croissant cereal retails for US$50 per box. The individual croissants are about the same size as our two-dollar coin and made of hand-rolled laminated dough that is baked, coated with a cinnamon syrup and then dehydrated. It’s so popular that it has led to collaborations with indie cool-girl jewellery brand Catbird and music producer (and Selena Gomez’s boyfriend) Benny Bianco.

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Camilleri tells Broadsheet he first tried the mini cereal this January when he was in New York and visited the Coiffards’ bakery. He bought a box and enjoyed the product so much he decided to make his own. “I thought, ‘even if no one buys it, I’m happy to make it for myself’,” he says.

When he returned to Melbourne, Camilleri spent a month recipe-testing his version. First trying to use scraps left over from the regular-sized croissants the bakery team makes, before realising using scraps “ruined the lamination”. He landed on using fresh sheets of the same croissant dough the bakery uses to make more traditionally sized croissants.

Camilleri says the process of cutting and hand-rolling the mini croissants is mentally testing. “It’s a mind game, because you’re staring at a small triangle.” And there’s no set baking time because the croissants are so small. “You have to watch them,” he says, “we’ve burnt so many trays and that’s the saddest thing.”

The team first launched the product in February and now JC Patisserie’s mini-croissant cereal is now available once a month. A 150-gram bag is $35. Bags will be available this Saturday May 11 at the Abbotsford bakery.