Mini by Xavi Donnay

Mini by Xavi Donnay is a professional study of pastry in small format: taking the traditional idea of the petit four and expanding it into a complete category for modern restaurants, pastry shops, afternoon tea, catering, buffets and retail display.

Across 65 creations, Donnay explores how familiar pastry families change when they are reduced to only a few bites. Sablés, cakes, macarons, choux, bonbons and giandujas are joined by allergen-aware preparations, reworked classics and pieces that deliberately resist conventional classification. The goal is not simply to make an existing dessert smaller, but to reconsider proportion, structure, flavour impact and presentation for the miniature format.

This distinction is important professionally. A successful mini pastry has very little room for redundancy: each layer, texture and flavour has to communicate quickly, while the finished piece still needs enough detail to feel complete. Donnay approaches that constraint as an opportunity for creativity, using trompe-l’œil, moulding, contemporary ingredients and unexpected finishing techniques to give small products a strong identity.

The book is also organised for practical menu development. Indexes and tables allow the collection to be approached through different criteria, making it easier to plan assortments by format, preparation or flavour rather than treating the 65 recipes as isolated pieces.

Guest contributions from Miquel Guarro, Martin Lippo, Saray Ruiz, Eric Ortuño and Jean Siviuede broaden the range further, showing how different pastry professionals interpret the same small-format idea.

For pastry chefs, hotels, caterers, afternoon-tea programs and instructors, Mini offers something relatively uncommon: a substantial reference devoted specifically to building a contemporary bite-size pastry assortment rather than adding a short petit-four chapter to a general pastry book.