Their doughnuts’ Filipino flavors are a hit in the Big Apple

Kora’s Filipino-inspired doughnuts. WEBSITE

The pandemic gave birth to Kimberly Camara and boyfriend Kevin Borja’s Kora, a small baking operation they started after they were both laid off from their restaurant jobs in New York. Now, their Filipino-inspired doughnuts are drawing raves.

Kimberly began baking at home to fill up her time when she decided to stuff leftover brioche dough with leftover ube (purple yam) cream and fry them into doughnuts. A year later, their doughnuts are selling out under a minute of serving from their takeout window.

Doughnut entrepreneurs Kimberly Camara and Kevin Borja. WEBSITE

From 100 doughnuts a week at the start, they now make 1,000 a week and have moved production from her small Queens apartment to a commercial kitchen with professional equipment. They’ve hired one helper, while Kevin helps with deliveries.

Visual social media posts have definitely aided in creating demand for their doughnuts, but it’s the unique variety of the product’s Filipino-inspired flavors that’s the real draw. They range from buko pandan, ube to leche flan to halo-halo and champorado.

Their mission is to share the richness of Filipino flavors to a wider market, using doughnuts as the vessel. Their goal is to have brick and mortar shop with doughnuts readily available for people to buy without having to reserve them online.