Sweet sixteen with a doughnut empire and still at school too!

"When he was about seven years old, Morgan Hipworth taught himself to cook. Each weekend, Morgan made elaborate three-course dinners for his parents and grandparents, and would serve them in the front dining room of their home. And with that "Bistro Morgan" was born."

I find this young boy quite amazing, even if I don't approve of doughnuts, which is what his new shop sells. But he doesn't just sell doughnuts in the shop - he also sells them to several cafés around Melbourne. However, because he is too young to drive, his mother has to drive him to make the deliveries. But he does make virtually all of the doughnuts - over 1000 of them - mostly at the weekend.

The doughnuts are hugely over decorated and super-indulgent and really not to be recommended. I cannot imagine much more unhealthy things - but then as I had a macadamia and caramel cheesecake yesterday, or was it the day before, in a café up in the Dandenongs, who am I to get on my healthy high horse? We all need something indulgent every now and then don't we? A reward for doing something well or achieving a target, something to lift us when we are tired or depressed. Indulgences bring cheer into our lives - and here is a very young boy tapping into this.

Apparently he started by supplying cafés, then came a wildly successful popup and now he has opened his own shop in Windsor - a trendy inner suburb, right next door to Prahran and Toorak which are both very expensive areas. The name implies that you can eat there and the picture above does imply that too, but he also delivers to your home - using ubereats, and deliveroo (about which I wrote earlier). And they're not cheap $5.50 each or $30 for six, but then again I guess that's comparable to a fancy ice cream or a piece of cake in a café.

Their blurb on the front page says that the doughnuts are made fresh each morning, but then further on it says he makes the doughnuts at the weekend. Maybe he gets up at the crack of dawn and makes them as well. He works 50 hours a week on this venture whilst still studying at Caulfield Grammar - a posh private school, so I imagine he would also have lots of homework to do at the end of each day. And he makes dinner for the family every Saturday night. He must be tired. And wouldn't you get fed up with making the same thing all the time. Surely he would have to be on the point of stepping back from the hands on approach and handing that part of it over to somebody else.

I think I read about him somewhere but I'm not sure where, and then today I found a small column all about him in our local newspaper. Well it's not really a local, local newspaper in that it covers local news - just local real estate - but it's more a local Melbourne newspaper. So I thought I would write about him - in the tradition of occasionally writing about enterprising people like this.

Each week they change the 'menu'. I assume there is a basic doughnut mixture - the variety comes from the lavish toppings, such as those shown below.

This week's menu includes: Golden Gaytime, Strawberry Sprinkled, Mint Slice, Milo Ripple, Mars Bar and White Chocolate Tim-Tam, Hershey's Cookies and Cream, Classic Jam and Marshmallow, Nutella and Lemon Curd. Like I said - not good for you at all, and certainly not haute cuisine. Then you can have an ice cream sandwich which I think means that you have one of these doughnuts and then you cut them in half and put ice cream in the middle and further toppings on the ice cream.

It's all sort of horrible really but again I have to say I admire enormously the chutzpah of somebody so young doing so much. He will surely go far. If you want to know more just check out his website.