Japan’s super cute tanuki bread skips tricks, promises to be treat for your eyes and taste buds

You can trust this tanuki to be as sweet on the inside as it looks on the outside.

In Japanese folklore, tanuki are tricksters. There’s nothing they love more than playing pranks on us unsuspecting humans, and that image of them even extends to Japanese cuisine. “Tanuki soba” and “tanuki udon” are styles of noodles topped with tempura flakes only, because those crafty racoon dogs have tricked you by already eating the shrimp or veggies that would ordinarily be inside the tempura.

But at the same time, tanuki are really, really cute, and thankfully it’s this aspect that Japanese bakery Kimuraya has chosen to focus on for the treats that’ll be coming out of their ovens next month.

Called Tanuki-kun (-kun being a form of address in Japanese that’s friendlier and more familiar than -san), these baked goods are the polar opposite from tanuki soba/udon in terms of filling generosity. Inside the bun is a mixture of caramel cream and chocolate chips, promising a richly sweet and satisfying flavor profile with an interesting texture too.

On the outside, the tanuki’s facial features are made of chocolate, and the mask-like marking around its eyes, and part of its ears too, are rendered with a chocolate biscuit dough.

Kimuraya is a little on the premium-priced side for a Japanese bakery, and the 400-yen (US$2.50) Tanuki-kun is likewise a little more expensive than the average bakery treat, but with something that looks this delicious and adorable, we can make room in our snack budget. The Tanuki-kun goes on sale at Kimuraya bakeries from November 1, but can also be ordered through the Kimuraya online store as of October 28.

Related: Kimuraya location list, online store
Source, images: PR Times
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