From the picture itself, I think many people are familiar with this Japanese fish-shaped cake. It is a common Japanese street food and is most commonly filled with red bean paste, custard, and chocolate.
On a particular day, my mom was craving for some Taiyaki (not sure why) and was browsing for the fish shaped pan online. Eventually, she found one and decided to buy it. It was RM45.90 for a pan with two fish molds.
After looking through countless of recipes online, we found the one that was rated 4.9 stars. Why not choose a 5-star one you ask? Because the 5-star recipe R-E-F-U-S-E-D to load, and I ran out of patience. :D After the pan arrived from China, we went out to get ingredients. For the batter, I think the ingredients were like flour, sugar, milk yada yada yada but I saw a waffle mix so I just got it instead HAHAHA Don't judge me. Pre-Mixes are so easy to use, provided that they taste good of course. Some pre-mixes taste bad I know. Check out my Green's cake mix review here :P For the fillings, we got red bean paste and kaya. Who doesn’t like kaya right? Do you like kaya? Don’t tell me you hate kaya. >:(
Here’s a picture of all the stuff I used for the Taiyaki …
I KNOW THE FIRST PICTURE IS BLURRY HAHHA IT'S THE ONLY ONE I HAVE. DO NOT come for me. AHAHAH it's basically just the mix, water and melted butter. Also forgot to take a picture of the kaya. Just search Gardenia kaya if you don't know hahhaa.
I was able to make about 20 fishies with the batter. Only used about a third of the bag of red bean paste. Ooooo also, the red bean paste tasted EXACTLY like the ones in mooncakes. Yes, red bean mooncakes are supposed to taste like red bean. I know. But as an avid red bean eater (does this sound weird? AHHA my point is I like red bean fillings and I can taste the difference in every filling ok) it tasted exactly the same as Baker’s Cottage Red Bean mooncake. The paste was verrry fine, just the way I like it. There's basically two types of red bean paste. The mashed type and the smooth type. For the mashed type, it'll still contain some whole or broken beans, which in my opinion ruins the whole taste of the paste. 😊 I like my red bean paste smooth, and the one I bought was just perfect. As for the Kaya filling, I just bought Gardenia's kaya because um you can't go wrong with it? hahaha Some self proclaimed homemade kaya sold in stores don't taste as good so yeah. Used the whole tub? cup? jar? of kaya, it was 200 grams.
The waffle mix didn’t come with water and egg and butter (I know, so troublesome ugh) so I had to prepare them myself. >:( Mixed them all up and its ready to be cooked. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I was told to add 700 grams of water but I only added 500g. The batter was already sooo watery, plus the Taiyaki came out fine the first batch, so I didn't add more water.
Highly recommend getting this funnel thing (see below) because it super easy to use and you’ll have better control over the batter. I struggled when I used it for the first time because I was not used to it and had to operate it with both hands, but after awhile, I became a pro (of course) and only had to use one hand. Yes round of applause please. :D Also, it’s a cheap a*s funnel, so don’t expect some high-quality stainless-steel funnel that you see those sellers using outside when they sell kaya balls.
The instructions are pretty simple. Pour a layer of batter, then add in your desired filling, then pour another layer of batter on top to cover the filling. It took about 8-9 minutes for each batch. so about 4+ minutes for each side. According to online recipe, we should cook it for about 3 minutes for each side, but I like my taiyaki golden brown, and 3 minutes just wasn’t enough. However, if you prefer your Taiyaki to be yellow / white-ish, or maybe you like it wet and raw, feel free to adjust the timing. :D just make sure to occasionally open up the pan and check the progress.
When it's done, EAT IT HOT. DAYM it tasted good. Even if it’s cooled down, it wasn’t that bad either. The kaya one reminded me of the OG kaya balls you can get from AEON. Here’s a picture of kaya balls if you’ve never heard or tried them before (Istg, you’re missing out)
My fam finished all the tayaki in less than 24 hours HAHAHA. But if you think 20 is too much, some people freeze it for future servings I think. They just whip it out of the freezer and microwave it before eating.
Things to take note: It took us about 2 hours for the whole process because it sure wasn’t fast when we were flipping the pan and cooking only TWO Taiyaki at a time. Need some patience there for sure. UNLESS, you buy like 3-4 pans and cook them all at once HAHAHA Or maybe you can get the machines with idk 20 molds? HAHAH
Pretty sure it's easy to find in Japan.
If you don’t wanna use a waffle mix like I did, I think you can just search up a waffle recipe to get the basic ingredients. Oh ya, you can search for a Taiyaki recipe too hahaha. I referred to this one. My blog is nowhere near a recipe blog, I’m just here to share my first Taiyaki experience sooooo ya
Have fun trying, highly recommended ‘snack’, super easy (I think simple would be a better term to use) to make andddd definitely cheaper than buying them outside. Trust me I did the math.
Cost for the Taiyaki:
- Machine RM45.90
- Funnel RM6.90
- Waffle Mix RM6.90
- Red Bean Paste RM7.90
- Kaya RM3.20
- Water RM 1
- Butter RM 1
- My blood sweat and tears RM priceless
- My Time RM100 per hour
For my Taiyaki this time around, I’d rate it umm 4.9 stars ;D cause there’s always room for improvement! hehe That’s all for this blog, see you in the next! Ciao!
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