Coffee Shop OwnersrnEngineer New Treat

A cute little pastry with a cute little name, the duffin is the brainchild of Jeff Hagen, who with his wife, Nancy, owns the Pontiac Coffee House in Springdale.

Now located inside Jim’s Razorback Pizza at 813 W. Maple Ave., the Pontiac operated for five years in the 10,000-SF Charlesworth Pontiac building Nancy Hagen’s grandfather built in 1948. When the building was purchased last year by Northwest Medical Center-Springdale, the hospital struck a deal with the couple to let them operate the coffee house out of the much smaller building the hospital rents to Jim’s.

The Pontiac opened at the new location in January, and Jeff, who makes all of its pastries, had to get used to the convection pizza oven. Everything he tried to make came out burnt on the outside and gooey inside.

A mechanical engineer and former physics teacher, he experimented with a number of formulas before coming up with the duffin.

Hagen created a modified muffin recipe, and pours the batter into special doughnut baking pans.

The result is a moist, tasty doughnut-shaped confection he says typically has one-third fewer calories and fat grams than deep-fried doughnuts.

The duffins come in six flavors, such as banana nut and raspberry white chocolate. Hagen’s always working on new flavors, though, and likes to rotate them to make use of locally grown fruit in season.

He trademarked the duffin, but because the couple want to keep the business focused on their coffee drinks and fruit smoothies, they’re relying mostly on word of mouth to advertise it.

Every drink purchased comes with a free duffin. They’re also sold for 75 cents each, or customers can get a “Baker’s Duffin” – 13 duffins for the price of 12.