Tirol Chocolate – Young Donuts Dagashi

It’s often that we have chocolate in or on pastries and baked goods, but how often do we have bake goods and pastries inside the chocolate? As it turns out, it happens a lot with Tirol. This particular flavour maybe emulated what Japan knows as Young Donuts, but it wouldn’t be the first time Tirol has shoved a baked good into one of their chocolate centres.

To be clear these are emulating a popular dagashi known as Young Donuts. They are actually a fairly traditional snack in Japan, and are what their version of mini donuts are. They are supposed to be drier, less sweet and less cake like than what we in the North may be more accustomed to. The real thing is really just tiny, and has nothing to do with the age of the donuts.

These remind me of a few other flavours of Tirol I’ve had before. It has an interesting maple flavour to it, and also sort of tastes like you would imagine a pastry would if it was condensed into a small piece of something. The flavour would vaguely remind me of a sugar coated donut, in that I can taste the doughy flavour of the filling. Similar to the waffle flavour I had previously, I’m not sure if the maple flavour is intentional or that’s just how it turned out. I also haven’t had the source donut to confirm, so hard to say.

The texture is interesting – it’s got a doughy centre that is like a compressed piece of donut, including the sugar dusting. It has a slightly gritty texture that you get when you bite into a a sugar donut, and it’s like a cakey donut. It’s obviously not fluffy since it’s compressed into a little square, but it’s not bad. I also imagine it’s by design since Young Donuts are supposed to be less cakey than what westerners think of for modern, fluffy donuts. Ultimately I find it works well in this format, somewhat to my surprise.

This is one of the better flavours I’ve had when it comes to the collaboration flavours, but it’s nothing new. If I were to try to describe it, I would say it’s similar to the waffle flavour I had previously, but with extra sugar to simulate the gritty crunch of a donut. If you are ever curious whether a baked good can be emulated in the tiny confines of a chocolate, good news is that donuts definitely work.