Hole lot of doughnut love for Christchurch man
Peter Perrim might have the best job in the country.
A doughnut cart owner and flavour taster, he and his children test all the weird, wonderful and wacky flavour combinations before they hit the shelves at his newly-opened food truck in Christchurch, The Donut Dispensary.
Perrim and wife Joanna Perrim opened the retro mintgreen truck at Friendship Park Market, next to the Bridge of Remembrance in Cashel Mall, in mid-February.
Launching with an array of unusual sweet treats including doughnuts with a green tea glaze and baked pistachio crumble, strawberry cheesecake flavoured rounds, liquorice and dark chocolate rings and bacon and maple bites, Perrim said he noticed the demand for doughnuts in Canterbury at a bustling stall at the Riccarton Farmers’ Market.
‘‘We wanted to open a food truck and weren’t sure what to go with . . . the stall always had a big line for hot doughnuts, plus I like them.’’
Doughnuts are enjoying a resurgence in Christchurch, with bulging bites being offered by speciality boutique bars such as Glamour Cake at Lyttelton Bakery, and cafes including The Caffeine Laboratory, Supreme Supreme and Hello Sunday boasting decadent doughy treats in their cabinets.
While many offer fanciful options like syringes full of curds and fancy toppings, Perrim went slightly more simple with his designs and hoped to keep prices low to encourage the lunchtime market to part with ‘‘a few dollars’’. A standard doughnut is $2.90.
Although Perrim experiments with all the flavours before they hit the market, his children were the real ‘‘lucky ones’’ because they could please their sweet tooth and easily burn all the sugar off, he said.
‘‘I really don’t eat them often … we get the kids to try some but they have a pretty low threshold for quality and like everything so that doesn’t really work.’’
Perrim’s brother, a food scientist, helped come up with ideas for interesting flavours and combinations but inspiration could strike at any time and nothing was off limits, he said. Whole foods and fresh flavours were part of their trademark with stuffings like spiced apple, dried raspberries and apricots in their line of ‘‘dessert doughnuts’’. The cart is a ‘‘trial run’’ ahead of the opening of their brick-andmortar shop in the Riverside Farmers’ Market mid-year.