Ice Cream Meets Doughnut at The DoughCone
Every year, radio hosts and music critics share what they deem the song of the summer. With apologies to Luis Fonsi, if you ask me, there’s only one song of the summer: the song of the ice cream truck. And while I haven’t had a push-up pop in years, there’s nothing like that old-school nostalgia of ice cream out of a truck. The DoughCone, a food truck that parks in Rice Village most weekends, serves up classic soft serve with a twist: cones made of doughnut.
The DoughCone, the truck's eponymous signature product, is not your average ice cream cone. Of course, there’s the cone itself: It’s soft, fluffy and dusted with cinnamon sugar, almost more like a churro than a doughnut. Then, there’s the lining. The inside is coated with your choice of Nutella or Biscoff cookie spread. Filling up the inside is swirly vanilla soft serve, crowned with unlimited toppings, ranging from cappuccino wafers to gummy worms.
The ice cream base is not as creamy as I would have liked, with an almost undetectable vanilla flavor. The texture is a little more like frozen yogurt than ice cream. At $6.99, it’s not exactly a steal, either. But the cone itself and the unlimited toppings make up for the flaws. I got mini marshmallows on top, and while I was expecting the jet-puffed style, the topping was surprisingly crunchy, more like Lucky Charms. Sliced strawberries and Oreo chunks blended into the ice cream nicely.
I usually prefer ice cream in a cup to a cone, but the texture of this cone sets it apart. With a chewy and cinnamon-coated exterior, the melted Nutella lining on the inside makes every bite its own miniature sundae. At the bottom, a strawberry plugs the cone and makes for a fun surprise.
Dessert hybrids have been getting a bad rap lately. After the success of the Cronut, pastries like the “scuffin” (scone crossed with a muffin) and “crookie” (croissant crossed with a cookie) were ridiculed by the media. They’re not as trendy as, say, poke, and sometimes the combinations are…unusual. But can you really mess up Nutella and ice cream inside a cone made of doughnut pastry? My taste buds say no.
