Many people want to experience the most authentic food possible when travelling in Japan, but this can be difficult when you have a dietary restriction.

Luckily, these days there’s plenty of Japanese businesses, even very traditional ones, that have risen to the occasion to help make Japanese food accessible to all. One such place is Daitokuya Chokyu, based in Mie Prefecture.

This traditional Japanese sweet store is 300 years old, so they have plenty of know-how when it comes to wagashi. But, apart from their long history, they also have a forward-thinking outlook, as they’ve just debuted a new type of dorayaki which is both vegan and gluten free.

Dorayaki consists of two pancake-like castella patties with a filling sandwiched between them, usually red bean paste. As the traditional dorayaki calls for ingredients such as eggs (no-go for vegans) and flour (no-go for those on a gluten-free diet), these wagashi experts have reformulated the recipe to exclude these elements, and create a brand new product called the ‘Honki Dorayaki’.

It has no dairy or animal products at all, and they’ve cut out the gluten. The white sugar has also been replaced with beet sugar and organic blue agave to make it into even more of a guilt-free treat.

There’s three flavours of filling available. There’s the classic red bean paste, as well as matcha and hojicha flavours.

Dorayaki is delicious eaten as is, but it can also be heated in the microwave, with extra toppings such as plant-based margarine (to keep it vegan).

Or put it in the freezer for the perfect summer snack.

They can be bought on the Honki Dorayaki online store in boxes of 5 for 2980 yen.