Eating donuts was one of my favorite childhood food pastimes and one I took seriously even as a kid. A fresh glazed from Shipley’s? Yes, please. I’ll take five. Don’t bother me while I’m chewing; I’m having an experience. Chocolate iced? Don’t you dare take the last one. Cinnamon sugar cake donut, give me some milk so I don’t choke. Homer Simpson as a child idol only made things worse by normalizing gorging. Thankfully, my parents knew when to cut me off. They didn’t have to, though, when someone showed up to the soccer party with some day-old grocery store donuts, deflated and covered in glazed sweat. Those were always one — or half of one — and done.

As I’ve gotten older and more health-conscious and vain, I’ve gone through phases where I abstain from the fried, sugary, circular hole-punched delights, which is foolish. Life’s hard. Everyone deserves the occasional fried ring-shaped treasure. I can’t think about donuts without thinking about one of my favorite fictional donut enthusiasts of all time, “Twin Peaks’” Dale Cooper, who believed in a daily present to oneself and whose metabolism allowed him to eat three slices of cherry pie in one sitting.

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I have more of a once a week philosophy when it comes to donuts, or just whenever I get the urge. And as an adult, I’ll try any donut whether it’s jelly or custard filled, iced, powdered, bear clawed, cruller or just plain cake. Or when I have a moment of sheer confusion like I had recently when waiting for a coffee at Mylo Coffee Co. and noticing the mochi donuts behind the glass with the sugar covered donut hole plugging the typically void space in the center of the donuts.

“Why have I never tried one of those?” I asked myself. And what exactly is a mochi donut and why don’t I already know this? How have I not been fired from Arkansas Times?

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Suddenly inspired, I ordered both of the two iced flavors Mylo had on hand that day: blueberry and maple and a cup of batch brew which I accompany with donuts instead of milk now that I’m not 7. And it’s gotta be black.

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Back at home, the first bite of the blueberry iced donut was memorable and like all quality donuts, it stopped me in my tracks. “Oh my God,” I whispered. The sweet flavor was fantastic but what surprised me the most was the texture. It was chewy on the inside and crunchy on the outside, a new donut experience for me. The donut’s icing cascades down all sides encompassing all but the underside where you can sneak a peek at the fried coating, which kind of resembles a sugary powder.

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Enthralled that I’d found such a donut within a stone’s throw from my apartment, I let myself go and consumed both of them, along with the mochi donut holes that come covered in a vanilla sugar coating, and for the first time in my donut shopping experience, were not sold separately.

Some of you are already hip to this but, for those of you who are not, here’s the weird part. I’d consumed these uniquely textured, delicious donuts and I’d done so without consuming any gluten. Mochi donuts are made with mochiko, a gluten-free sweet Japanese rice flour.

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Mylo’s general manager and head baker, Savannah Gunnell, said the mochiko flour (English translation: mochi) is the main component in the donut and what makes them special.

Coconut mochi donut.

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“It’s a naturally gluten-free flour, and it’s also incredibly versatile,” Gunnell said. “Because it is naturally gluten-free, you can work with the dough for like an hour and it won’t change the consistency of the donuts, whereas, if you were working with a different dough, like a brioche or something, it would obviously toughen as you kneaded it more. This one is incredibly easy to work with,” she said.

The even crunchy texture throughout the donut is a result of the way the donuts are fried, the specific temperature and the timing of when they’re flipped, Gunnell said.

Gunnell said Mylo does have other gluten-free products in the bakery like granola bars and brownies, but having gluten-free donuts generates more excitement, and if they don’t sell out of the donuts on any given day, Gunnell knows something is wrong.

“To see a gluten-free donut, I feel like that’s not super common, especially around here. People get pretty stoked,” she said.

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Gunnell said there were a couple months earlier in the pandemic when the supply chain was affected, and mochi flour was suddenly unavailable. “We couldn’t source it from anywhere, and we were out of mochi donuts for months,” she said. “It was awful.”

When I first discovered mochi donuts a few weeks ago, I didn’t realize they were trending in America. I texted a foodie friend about them and he told me about a recent episode of “Queer Eye” that featured an Austin baker who specializes in decorative mochi donuts.

Mylo was ahead of the trend. Gunnell said the recipe has been with the company long before she started two and a half years ago. The flavors change week to week, Gunnell said and around the holidays Mylo does seasonal mochi donut flavors like cranberry or pumpkin in the fall. Other varieties included chocolate, coconut and a salted caramel tahini, which I’ll be on the lookout for.

Gunnell said your local Asian grocery store will likely have mochi flour if you want to try it out in your own kitchen. It can also be found online.

“I like when people get out of their comfort zone and try new things,” she said, “so I want to be sure that people know how to access it if they want to.”

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