Why tofu, you may ask? Any food made of rice (in this case, glutinous rice flour) becomes hard naturally when it’s cool. Just like everyone claimed, this is almost Pon de Ring-like donuts but not quite right at all. glutinous rice flour + tofu (with different ratios) – You’ll find tons of Japanese “Pon de Ring-like (ポンデリング風)” recipes online using the glutinous rice flour and tofu combination, so I had to try at least once.glutinous rice flour only – It tasted like Mochi Donut, but not the same as Pon de Ring.We tried the following flours in chronological order: We started by working out the main ingredients – specifically flours. Challenge #1: Choosing the right flour(s) If we can’t make it the same due to lack of machinery or unnatural ingredients, we wanted to at least achieve the best possible quality. JOC and I spent 2 weeks figuring out the Pon de Ring recipe, sometimes making donuts several times a day! Our focus from the beginning was to achieve the right airy but mochi-like texture of Pon de Ring. * Please read, only if you’re interested. I’ve made it before and they were excellent. If you have tried and loved the texture of mochi donuts, check out Mandy’s website, Lady and Pups for the recipe. For example, bagels with a chewy texture can be described as it has a mochi-like texture. In Japanese, we describe Pon de Ring’s mochi-like texture as mochi-mochi (モチモチしてる) or mocchiri (モッチリしている) texture, but it does not always mean that the food being described is made of mochi. Even though some of the mochi donuts might look like a copycat of Pon de Ring.

If you have tried Pon de Ring in Japan, you would be able to tell them apart.

Not sold in Japan, but pretty popular in the USĪs you can see, the ingredients and texture of these two donuts are very different.

Made of tapioca flour and wheat flour (officially mentioned by Mister Donut).

But I have to tell you Pon de Ring is NOT Mochi Donut and here’s why. Some of you may be wondering if Pon de Ring is (or is similar to) Mochi Donut. If you’re curious about all the current and past donut flavors at Mister Donut, you can check out this official page (it’s in Japanese, but use Chrome to translate).

Pon de Chocola (made with chocolate dough).

Pon de Strawberry (with strawberry glaze).

Pon de Kokuto (dusted with brown sugar).

You can find the classic Pon de Ring flavors (below) at almost every single Mister Donut in Japan and they also release many seasonal and unique flavors: While Japan’s Mister Donuts was expanding over the past four decades, almost all the Mister Donuts in the US changed their name over to Dunkin’ Donuts due to mergers and acquisitions. What’s really interesting is Mister Donuts originated from the US and opened its first store in Osaka in 1971. In case you’re not familiar with Mister Donut, it is the largest donut chain in Japan with over 1,300 stores across Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. The name Pon de loosely came from Pao de Queijo, a popular savory Brazilian cheese ball made of tapioca flour. Pon de Ring (ポンデリング) is a Mister Donut’s signature donut in Japan, which is made of a connected circle of 8 dough balls.

Key Ingredients & Tools for Making Pon de Ring.

Challenge #2: Dealing with the sticky soft dough.

Challenge #1: Choosing the right flour(s).

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Mochi donut