Sydney is a long way from New York, where Dominique Ansel started the cronut craze. His bakery in Soho has pastry fiends queuing at dawn for a sample of the half-croissant, half-donut creation.

A few high profile outlets here in Australia have brought out their own interpretations, including Adriano Zumbo’s zonut and Movida’s dossant. Although I’ve been curious about the hype, I clearly wasn’t curious enough to make a special effort to try either of these.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I stumbled across cronuts at Pierre’s Patisserie & Cafe in Turramurra.

I first tried their cronut a few weeks back and, in an instant, I was in bliss. Layers of light, flaky, crisp, golden pastry, with a creamy, vanilla custard sandwiched in the middle, dusted with icing sugar – as soon as the White Russian arrived at the cafe, I demanded he get one straight away because, damn, he didn’t know what he was missing!

Today, on our way up the coast, we made a pit stop at the cafe to satisfy our cronut urges. The memory of our first cronut experience had been relived many times over during the last few weeks and we could not wait to indulge in another.

Perhaps that first experience will forever remain hard to beat, kind of like your first ever kiss, but today’s cronut was not as good. The pastry was still golden and flaky, but there was a heavier, greasier taste this time.

Despite this slight disappointment, it’s still a worthwhile trip to get a taste of this latest craze.