Karintō

Karinto

Type	Snack food
Place of origin	Japan
Main ingredients	Flour, yeast, and brown sugar
Cookbook: Karinto   Media: Karinto

Karinto (花林糖, karintō, (ateji)) is a traditional Japanese snack food. Sweet and deep-fried, it is made primarily of flour, yeast, and brown sugar. It has a deep brown and pitted appearance, and takes the form of a bite-sized pillow or short cylinder. Although traditional karinto is coated with brown sugar, recently other variations appear in the market, such as white sugar, sesame seeds, miso, or peanuts.

History

Karinto's roots are controversial between China around the Nara Period to Kyoto aristocrats or from Portugal in later period, but in either case it has been available from street merchants since at least the Tenpō era, roughly 1830 to 1841.