Fisher & Donaldson ice cream fudge doughnut

Source: Fisher & Donaldson

Scottish bakery Fisher & Donaldson has launched a new ice cream doughnut to mark the opening of its garden café.

The ice cream fudge doughnut, which has an rsp of £3, sees its popular fudge doughnut cut open and a scoop of ice cream placed inside. They’re available exclusive from The Garden café.

Other items on the café’s menu include pastries, breakfast rolls, fudge doughnuts, coffee cream towers and strawberry tarts, as well as hot and cold sandwiches.

Open seven days a week, the outdoor café is located next to its flagship bakery in Culpar, Fife.

“We decided it would be a good idea to utilise a grassy field next to our bakery and flagship shop, in order to build a large outdoor café where our customers could enjoy the usual F&D experience, but in a safe and airy garden marquee,” said Chloe Milne, marketing manager at Fisher & Donaldson.

Fisher & Donaldson The Garden Cafe

Source: Fisher & Donaldson

“It began as a simple idea for a small shed to serve coffee and cakes from, with a covered seating area, and it has now become a large outdoor café marquee with a full menu and team of staff serving out of a converted lorry.”

The Garden Cafe can accommodate around 80 people, with twelve booths for four people and eight tables for four to six people. Consumers can also dine outdoors on the decking or at picnic tables on the lawn. The tables are spaced two metres apart.

Covid-19 has been the biggest challenge that the 100-year-old family business has faced, it said.

After closing its shops for several months, it has been a slow process to reopen them. The bakery opened an online store for home deliveries in the local area, where it sold over 10,000 fudge doughnuts and delivered 300 orders a day, it added.

“Our current plan is to organise some events in The Garden Café, to bring people in over winter – including pop-up shops and workshops, if Covid-19 guidelines permit it. We are also looking at reopening some of our indoor cafes once we have worked through the logistics of how to do so safely for both customers and staff. Other plans include refreshing our branding and looking at how we can adapt to selling more online,” Milne added.