Gokoku has another wonderful creation this year-end season with a heavenly pairing of kokuto (Okinawan brown sugar) and raisin, embedded in their signature fluffy buns. I love their kokuto offerings, so was excited to try this when it came out.
It actually had more of a matte texture as in the pictures below. The glistening look in this first picture was due to condensate because I had stored it overnight in the fridge and had just taken it out.
Before eating, I reheated it in the oven for the perfect texture of their fluffy bread. When reheated or lightly toasted, these buns of theirs become thinly crispy on the outside, while maintaining a delightfully fluffy and chewy texture on the inside.
The genius of this product was in the taste pairing. Okinawan brown sugar has a wonderful rich dark, earthy flavour with notes of liquorice, caramel and smoke. It is made from unrefined cane sugar and is boiled down until it becomes a hard block. It's like a darker and less milky, less sweet version of caramel or toffee, so if you love dark and deep rich flavours, it's an upgrade over garden variety caramel and toffee.
I would say Okinawan brown sugar or kokuto is similar to gula melaka (coconut palm sugar), but taste-wise, kokuto is slightly darker or more bitter than gula melaka, and gula melaka tends to be served with salt. Also, while kokuto comes from cane sugar, gula melaka comes from coconut palm sugar, but both are similarly unrefined and boiled down into hard blocks.
It was this lovely complex and dark flavour that paired exceedingly well with the grape and wine flavours in the raisin, like darkly caramelised raisins without the extra sweetness, adding great complexity and depth to the fluffy bun. It's like the complexity you get when marinating dried fruits in liqueurs because the slight bitterness and complexity of the kokuto is like the bitterness and complexity in liqueur, except that there's no alcohol in this.
I had it with salted butter and it was the perfect heavenly party in my mouth.
At just $2.90, I thought it was a wonderful treat at more value than expensive tarts that cost $5-10 a piece.
They also launched this with a kinako flavour bun, which I also got but haven't tried yet. I can't wait to dig into that!
Discover other dark brown sugar and Okinawan treats
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