When we talk about Japanese donuts, Pon de Ring Donuts (ポンデリング) from Mr. Donuts instantly comes top in my mind. Have you seen them before? Yeah, I’m talking about these slightly quirky, ‘baby teething ring’ looking donuts that hit the sweet spot when snack time is calling. Besides the funky outlook, Pon de Ring Donuts have a unique chewy (we call it the mochi-mochi) texture that set them apart from the regular donuts. I will say that they are GOOD. And dangerous. My family is crazy about these donuts whenever we’re in Japan, so I’ve challenged myself to make them at home!

What is Pon de Ring?

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. The name Pon de loosely came from Pao de Queijo, a popular savory Brazilian cheese ball made of tapioca flour. 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. What’s really interesting is Mister Donuts originated from the US and opened its first store in Osaka in 1971. 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. 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:

Pon de Ring (with simple glaze)Pon de Kokuto (dusted with brown sugar)Pon de Strawberry (with strawberry glaze)Pon de Angel (cream-filled)Pon de Chocola (made with chocolate dough)and more!

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 Ring vs. Mochi Donut

Some of you may be wondering if Pon de Ring is (or is similar to) Mochi Donut. But I have to tell you Pon de Ring is NOT Mochi Donut and here’s why. Pon de Ring

Made of tapioca flour and wheat flour (officially mentioned by Mister Donut)Soft, airy, bouncy, and chewy

Mochi Donut

Made of glutinous rice flourDense and chewyNot sold in Japan, but pretty popular in the US

As you can see, the ingredients and texture of these two donuts are very different. If you have tried Pon de Ring in Japan, you would be able to tell them apart. Even though some of the mochi donuts might look like a copycat of Pon de Ring. 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. For example, bagels with a chewy texture can be described as it has a mochi-like texture. If you have tried and loved the texture of mochi donuts, check out Mandy’s website, Lady and Pups for the recipe. I’ve made it before and they were excellent.

My Pon de Ring Making Journey

  • Please read, only if you’re interested. Mr. 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. 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.

Challenge #1: Choosing the right flour(s)

We started by working out the main ingredients – specifically flours. We tried the following flours in chronological order:

glutinous rice flour only – It tasted like Mochi Donut, but not the same as Pon de Ring.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. Just like everyone claimed, this is almost Pon de Ring-like donuts but not quite right at all. Why tofu, you may ask? Any food made of rice (in this case, glutinous rice flour) becomes hard naturally when it’s cool. Adding tofu (and decreasing the rice component in the mixture) helps the texture to stay a bit softer.tapioca flour only – After further research, I learned that Mister Donut officially said Pon de Ring contains tapioca flour. So I tried making the donut with 100% tapioca flour but couldn’t achieve the right texture.glutinous rice flour + tapioca flour (with 3 different ratios) – I thought I should combine glutinous rice flour and tapioca flour and see what happens. The glutinous rice made the donuts denser as expected from our trials #1 and #2.all-purpose flour + tapioca flour (with different ratios) – We researched more. This time we found this YouTube video that allowed a camera to go into the Mister Donut’s kitchen. Mr. JOC saw a thermometer in the donut dough (see below) and he also remembered seeing a thermometer in the video clip that was looping inside Mister Donut in Japan. This was our turning point! We realized that they are a donut shop after all and also use flour and yeast for Pon de Ring, just like making other donuts! So we tested different ratios of flour and tapioca flour to find out the right texture.bread flour + tapioca flour – We also tried using bread flour (more gluten) to increase the bouncy texture. The donuts came out with a good mochi-mochi texture but they weren’t airy and light.

Challenge #2: Dealing with the sticky soft dough

In the YouTube video I mentioned earlier, you can see Mister Donut’s Pon de Ring dough is quite sticky and soft when kneading. And the final stage of the dough (see below) is still pretty sticky and soft. Mister Donut does not need to shape the dough into a Pon de Ring shape by hand. The machine squeezes out the dough to create its funky ring shape and shot directly into the hot oil. Obviously, I don’t have that machine in the kitchen and I will need to shape the sticky dough with my hands. I tested all-purpose flour and tapioca flour ratios to see if I can achieve a dough that’s easier to deal with. However, the ratio for tapioca flour needs to be higher and it yields a pretty soft dough. When you increase the flours, the final texture of the donuts becomes denser and cakey. So I just learned to deal with the soft and sticky dough and figured out some tricks to shape the connected bubble ring of the donuts.

Key Ingredients & Tools for Making Pon de Ring

1. Tapioca Flour and All-Purpose Flour

To achieve the perfectly airy, mochi-like texture for the Pon de Ring donuts, I’ve partnered with Bob’s Red Mill® and used their Tapioca Flour and All-Purpose Flour. When comes to baking and flour products, I highly recommend Bob’s Red Mill. The quality of the flours is unbeatable and I genuinely admire the company for their honest ingredients and the processes used in producing the products.

2. Instant Yeast

The two most common dry yeasts are Instant (Quick/Rapid-Rise) Yeast and Active Dry Yeast. You can read this detailed information about different types of yeasts. The major difference is that active dry yeast always needs to be dissolved in warm liquids (water or milk) before use while instant yeast can be mixed right into the dough. For convenience, I like using Instant Yeast. The two popular instant yeast brands are Red Star and Fleischmann’s and you can find them at grocery stores. I have tried both brands before, and for this recipe, I used Red Star Quick-Rise instant yeast to make my donuts. After reading this page on instant yeast, I’ve decided to hydrate/dissolve my instant yeast (even though it’s not active dry yeast) in warm milk (110 ºF or 43 ºC – slightly warmer than body temperature) to give it a good start. It allows the yeast to become very active and ready to work in my dough.

3. Deep Frying Oil – Safflower Oil

From the Mister Donut website and other public articles online, we learned that their donuts are deep-fried in lard, and possibly a combination of other oils such as vegetable shortening. They are both saturated fats that stay solid at room temperature, which allows the donuts to stay crisp and not “wet” after deep frying. As I wanted to avoid lard or vegetable shortening, we tried deep frying the donuts in our go-to oils for their neutral flavor and high smoke point – vegetable oil and canola oil. However, we did not like the vegetable oil taste that’s been left on the donuts. After reading this article, we gave safflower oil a try and we agreed that it’s the best oil for frying donuts.

4. Pastry Card

To work with the sticky dough, I learned that this thin plastic pastry card (shown above) became very handy! If I was only using my fingertips, the dough sticks and grows spike tips everywhere I touch and loses its round shape. This pastry card also helps to divide, scrape, and transfer the mini dough balls, and I didn’t let go from my right hand (except for the time when I was rolling the dough ball with my palms).

5. Thermaworks ChefAlarm

After deep-frying Japanese croquettes, Chicken Karaage, and Tempura for over 20 years at home, I can deep-fry comfortably without a thermometer. On the contrary, Mr. JOC loves “high tech” gadgets, and set up my deep frying station with our Thermaworks ChefAlarm. I started deep frying and noticed that ChefAlarm warns me when the oil temperature exceeds the low and high temperatures. I didn’t realize how super convenient and helpful it was until I got busy juggling deep-frying and glazing the hot donuts at the same time.

5 Helpful Tips to Remember

Knead the dough well to activate the gluten – I highly recommend using a stand mixer to knead the sticky dough. To achieve mochi-mochi texture, a strong gluten needs to be formed. We did try kneading without a stand mixer but the final texture of the donut was not optimal.Try not to add too much flour – With tapioca flour being the majority of the ingredients, the dough should be soft. To get the ultimate texture for Pon de Ring, try not to add additional flours. I prepared 2 tablespoons of additional all-purpose flour to dust my work surface and my hands. However, I didn’t finish using all the extra flour.Don’t deep fry at high temperature – The optimal deep-frying temperature for Pon de Ring donuts is between 325 ºF (168 ºC) and  350 ºF (177 ºC). When the oil is too hot, the donuts will turn brown too soon and the texture of the donut skin gets too crispy. When the oil temperature is too low, the donuts don’t look appetizing and absorb too much oil.Use a paper towel to drain oil – From my countless recipe testings, I learned that draining oil on sheets of paper towels works better than on a wire rack. After draining, transfer the donuts to a wire rack to cool and glaze.Put glaze when donuts are still hot – You MUST glaze your Pon de Ring donuts while they are hot! The remaining heat from the donut spreads the glaze beautifully when you flip over. Don’t wait until you finish deep frying all the donuts. Multitask deep frying and glazing at the same time could be hectic so find a partner for this project.

For the donut fans and baking aficionados out there, I hope you would try your hand at Pon de Ring. The donut making was no doubt an endeavor, but we were glad that we perfected the recipe and the reward paid off. Otherwise, add the Pon de Ring donuts to your list of must-eats when you visit Japan. Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.