Design
London Has a Hybrid Pastry-Naming Controversy on Its Hands
Starbucks says it just invented the "Duffin." But a well-known tea shop has been selling them for a while.
UK-based Starbucks recently announced a new addition to the world of hybrid pastries -- the "Duffin," a jelly-filled, sugar-covered cross between a donut and a muffin.
But it turns out they didn't invent the Duffin, and the claim is making local pastry purists mad. You can trace the idea back to a decade-old Nigella Lawson cookbook. It was later popularized by Bea Vo, who sells it in her popular Bea's of Bloomsbury tea rooms. Vo says on her company's Facebook page that her customers at one location started to call them Duffins after her cookbook was published. "The name stuck," she said.