Mochi Madness: A review on the only mochi donuts in Kansas City from Black Hole Bakery

After seeing colorful mochi donuts flood my TikTok page, I was intrigued and decided to find a local shop — Black Hole Bakery — to finally try them. Mochi donuts differ from normal donuts in one way, they are made from sweet rice flour, giving them a chewy texture that melts in your mouth.

At Black Hole Bakery the donuts cycle through new creative flavors every week such as chile mango, birthday cake, guava and other unique flavors, keeping one classic chocolate donut on the menu throughout the year.

Having previously tasted the famous mochi donuts from Mochinut in Chicago — which were perfect in every aspect such as the flavor, texture and presentation — my expectations were high walking into Black Hole Bakery.

Sadly the bakery was a let down and wasn’t a good use of the $12 I spent on three mediocre mochi donut balls that didn’t even have the traditional ring shape to them.

When I first walked in, the smell of fresh baked bread wafted through the store which had me excited. But the donuts looked sad with their messy and dull presentation through the display, which made me start to question how good they were really going to be. 

Chile Mango: 3 Stars

The Chile Mango mochi donut was a bright orange frosted donut hole sprinkled with a generous amount of Tajín seasoning on the top. I was eager to try this one because I love mango and Tajín together, but as I took the first bite, the donut flavor was a rollercoaster. It was a salty and sour flavor mixed with the artificial mango taste, ultimately not mixing well together.

This was my favorite at first because the mango frosting was pleasant and the texture of the donuts was chewy similar to the texture of a mochi ice cream.But then as I kept chewing,the Tajín overpowered my mouth and ruined the whole taste of the donut. As much as I love plain mango and Tajín, it does not belong on a donut. 

Pink Lemonade: 2.5 Stars

The idea of a pink lemonade mochi donut seemed strange, but also appetizing. The base was a plain donut with crumbly pink sugar coating the sides. I was curious to what this would taste like but my expectations were killed when I took a bite and the acidic sugar overwhelmed my taste buds.

Even worse, the sugar ended up all over my hands and mouth. While the overall taste was decent, the stickiness and overuse of the sugar ruined the donut. But similar to the last one, the base was still the delicious and chewy mochi donuts that I knew — the excess sugar just threw the taste off.

Chocolate Iced: 3 Stars

In my mind you can’t mess up a chocolate donut. This proved to be somewhat true as the donut wasn’t terrible,but there was nothing outstanding about it. This donut had a chocolate base and was iced with chocolate frosting which appealed to me because I love anything chocolate.

But when I took a bite of it, the taste was just average. There wasn’t a strong chocolate taste that I was expecting so the donut was just a bland bread taste. The donut didn’t have a strange flavor, but nothing was outstanding about it.

Overall, Black Hole Bakery has potential. The rest of the store was filled with decadent pastries that looked amazing. But the mochi donuts were a flop. The base of the donuts were solid, but the flavors just needed to be tweaked in order to tie it all together.

I would definitely go back and try some different flavors to see if any of the others are better. As these are the only mochi donuts in the Kansas City area, they aren’t too bad but certainly can be improved.