Dunkin' Mochi Donut Recipe

A mochi donut is a ring of eight small balls of dough made with glutinous rice flour, fried and glazed, chewy where a regular donut is fluffy. Dunkin' tested one in Nashville in 2022. This recipe makes six: knead a dough of rice flour, wheat flour, egg and milk, roll 48 small balls, set them in rings of eight and fry at 340°F.

Does Dunkin' have a mochi donut?

It has tested one. TheStreet reported on 5 July 2022 that Dunkin' was testing a mochi doughnut at its Nashville locations and already sold one in Singapore under the name Berry Berry Mochi.

The matcha donut on Dunkin's national menu was something else. The Matcha Topped Donut of February 2021 was the chain's regular glazed donut with matcha powder on top.

This page is therefore not a copy of one Dunkin' recipe. It makes the donut that the name stands for, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Dunkin'.

What a mochi donut is

Mochi donuts cross the American donut with Japanese mochi. An early version, poi mochi, was made in Hawaii in 1992. The ring of eight connected balls is the pon de ring, which the Japanese chain Mister Donut launched in 2003. They are made with glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour.

Glutinous rice flour contains no gluten, despite its name. This recipe uses wheat flour as well and is not gluten-free.

Recipe

Mochi Donuts

Pon de ring style mochi donuts — a dough of glutinous rice flour and wheat flour, shaped into rings of eight small balls, fried and dipped in a vanilla glaze. Six donuts.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

35 min

Cook

15 min

Total

50 min

Serves

6

Cuisine

Japanese-American

Ingredients

• For the dough:
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon glutinous rice flour (mochiko)
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)
• 4 cups vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• For the glaze:
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Make the starter: stir 1 tablespoon of the glutinous rice flour with 2 tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl and microwave for 20 to 30 seconds, until it is a sticky, translucent paste.
2. Whisk the remaining cup of glutinous rice flour, the all-purpose flour, the sugar, the baking powder and the salt in a bowl. Add the egg, the remaining 6 tablespoons of milk, the melted butter and the starter, stir, then knead by hand for 3 to 4 minutes into a smooth, soft dough that no longer sticks to the bowl.
3. Cut six 4-inch squares of parchment. Roll the dough into 48 balls of about 2 teaspoons (10 grams) each. Set eight balls in a ring on each square, touching, and press them lightly together.
4. Heat the oil in a deep, heavy pot to 340°F. Lower two rings into the oil on their parchment and fry for 2 minutes, pulling the paper out with tongs as soon as it comes loose. Turn the rings and fry for 2 minutes more, until golden. Drain on a rack and fry the rest.
5. Whisk the powdered sugar, the 2 tablespoons of milk and the vanilla into a thick glaze. Dip the top of each warm donut, let the excess run off and leave the donuts on the rack for 10 minutes, until the glaze has set.

The starter, and why the dough needs it

Rice flour has no gluten to hold a dough together. The spoonful that is cooked with milk first turns into a sticky paste, and kneaded into the rest it binds the dough, so that the balls can be rolled and the rings hold in the oil. Without it the dough crumbles.

The wheat flour works from the other side and makes the donut lighter. With rice flour alone the rings fry up dense.

Rings of eight

• Ten grams a ball, about two level teaspoons. For 48 balls a scale is quicker than a spoon.
• Touching, and pressed together. The balls fuse where they touch as they fry. Loose balls drift apart in the oil.
• On parchment. The soft ring cannot be lifted by hand. It goes into the oil on its paper, and the paper comes loose within half a minute.
• 340°F. In hotter oil the outside browns before the inside has cooked, and the centre stays gummy.

Matcha, strawberry and chocolate glaze

• Matcha: sift 1 1/2 teaspoons of matcha powder into the powdered sugar and use 2 1/2 tablespoons of milk.
• Strawberry: replace the milk with 2 tablespoons of strained strawberry purée.
• Chocolate: add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 1 more tablespoon of milk.

The same matcha powder goes into the iced lavender matcha.

Eaten the same day

Mochi donuts are at their chewiest within a few hours of frying. By the next day the rice flour has firmed up; 10 seconds in the microwave softens a donut again for a short while.

Two Dunkin' donuts are copied on this site: the brownie batter donut and the whoopie pie donut. A filled yeast donut after the Dubai chocolate bar is the Dubai donut.