Here’s Where to Find Mochi Doughtnuts in Atlanta Right Now

There are many doughnut options to be present in and round Atlanta, from old style bitter cream rings with a easy glaze to brioche doughnuts filled with inventive fillings and artfully embellished. However one doughnut particularly is having a severe second proper now in Atlanta: the mochi doughnut.

First popularized in Hawaii just a few years in the past, the mochi doughnut gained additional prominence in the US when it started popping up at retailers across the West Coast. Japanese doughnut chain Mister Donut served as inspiration for the now distinctive (and extremely Instagrammable) form most frequently related to mochi doughnuts, the pon de ring — assume doughnut holes caught collectively to kind a hoop just like a child teether.

Made by combining mochiko (a sort of glutinous rice flour) and tapioca starch, mochi doughnuts are usually gluten free. Though, some bakers do combine wheat flour into the dough batter. The mochiko and tapioca starch mixture gives the distinctive texture of a mochi doughnut, which tends to have a crispier exterior with a springy but barely dense inside. It’s a texture Brush Sushi Izakaya and Momonoki co-owner Jason Liang describes as “chewy, however not in a foul means, like bouncy and chewy.”

Momonoki

Liang and his enterprise accomplice and spouse ChingYao Wang had been in highschool when he says they first turned smitten with mochi doughnuts. Mister Donut opened places all through Taiwan, the place the couple grew up. The doughnuts shortly turned all the fad there. Unable to seek out mochi doughnuts in Atlanta, Liang and Wang determined to develop a recipe for Momo Cafe, the bakery and low store positioned inside Japanese restaurant Momonoki in Midtown.

Liang says he and Wang examined one recipe for a few months earlier than figuring out that frying their mochi doughnuts wasn’t working. The doughnuts had been too oily and greasy.

“We ended up shopping for a doughnut maker, it’s virtually like a waffle maker, however in mochi doughnut form, and it turned out fairly comparable, and even the flavour after which the feel was proper in that mochi doughnut maker,” says Liang.

When mochi doughnuts are on the menu at Momo Cafe, folks can count on conventional mochi doughnuts flavors, like black sesame and matcha, generally even chocolate citrus.

Whereas mochi doughnuts are nonetheless fairly tough to seek out in Atlanta, that is probably not the case for for much longer. Mochibees opened its first places in Duluth and Doraville this fall, with one other location slated to open in Johns Creek. California-based Mochinut plans to open six Atlanta-area locations, together with a store at Chattahoochee Food Works.

The doughnut-making course of at Mochibees and Mochinut is extra automated, permitting for a wider choice of flavors, together with ube, taro, and American toppings like Biscoff and cookies and cream. An extruder swiftly shapes the doughnuts into the signature bulbous ring form earlier than hitting the fryer.

Fu-Mao Solar

Different Atlanta cooks are getting in on the mochi doughnut craze, too. Fu-Mao Solar, the chef behind Taiwanese food and breakfast pop-up Mighty Hans, makes use of mochi doughnuts as one other automobile to ship the flavors and elements of Taiwan. He says including a mochi doughnut to the menu for the breakfast pop-ups he holds at Gato on Saturday mornings was a “no-brainer.” Folks love pastries, Solar says, and the mochi doughnut affords a well-recognized texture from his childhood.

“In my family, we might eat this [dish] known as tang yuan. It’s mochi wrapped round a crimson bean paste or black sesame, and my mother would boil it and we’d eat it like dessert,” he says.

Solar pipes his mochi doughnuts into molds earlier than baking. He loves coating his doughnuts with peanut sugar, a preferred Taiwanese topping discovered on many desserts within the nation. For his peanut topping, Solar blends roasted peanuts with rock sugar.

Solar says it’s not stunning to him that mochi doughnuts have develop into the newest dessert pattern in Atlanta.

“It’s simply so totally different for everyone. It appears like a doughnut, however you then chunk into it and it’s a very totally different texture,” explains Solar. “I feel it’s mild, but in addition the chewiness catches folks off guard, and with the scrumptious flavors that persons are providing.”

Have you ever seen mochi doughnuts on the menu at an Atlanta bakery, pop-up, or espresso store? Ship Eater the main points at atlanta@eater.com.

Lia Picard is an Atlanta-based freelance author overlaying a broad vary of meals and tradition subjects with a selected fondness for highlighting individuals who develop, prepare dinner, and serve meals. Her work has appeared within the New York Instances, Wall Road Journal, Meals & Wine, Atlanta journal, Eater Atlanta, and Thrillist. When she’s not writing, Lia is introducing her toddler to Atlanta’s finest treats.