Like a lot of originally foreign chains that have set up shop in Japan, Krispy Kreme offers not just its original home-country items, but also special flavors designed to be especially appealing to locals, like sakura and anko . But for their newest Japan-exclusive, Krispy Kreme isn’t just changing up the filling or coating of their donuts, but the dough itself, and using arguably the most quintessentially Japanese ingredient of all: Japanese rice. Going on sale this fall is the Kome-Dough Kuromitsu Kinako.
Kome is the Japanese word for “rice,” and yep, the Kome-Dough donuts are made with rice flour, which is itself made from domestically grown grains. This isn’t just a gimmick, either, as Krispy Kreme says that the Kome-Dough dough imparts the natural subtle sweetness of Japanese rice strains, and also gives an extra touch of chewiness to the donut’s texture. Krispy Kreme Japan offered rice-flour donuts for a brief period last November, calling them “Komeco” at that time.
Thanks to the positive customer response, rice-flour donuts now have a permanent spot on the regular Krispy Kreme menu in Japan, with the chain referring to Kome-Dough as a new “line” of donuts. The debut flavor features a kinako (roasted soybean) glaze and powdered topping, as well as a swirl of kuromitsu (a molasses-like brown sugar syrup), both ingredients being popular flavorings used in traditional Japanese desserts. The Kome-Dough Kuromitsu Kinako goes on sale November 1 nationwide, .
