Taiyaki DYI

Taiyaki. It's a traditional Japanese sweet treat made with a flour batter and red bean paste. You can find it in Japantown. When it's being baked, you can smell it a mile away. Like in cartoons, just follow the smell to the food stand. You can't miss it.

A fish is born: pour batter into hot fish shape molds, fill the middle with red bean paste, let it cook, flip to cook the other side and voila, piping hot sweet treat in minutes. Just like magic! It's yummy but darn expensive. I remembered that it used to be about $2.50 each. That was a while back...

Never thought I would be making Taiyaki one day. I spotted a Taiyaki mold in a Korean Supermarket last week. Not cheap. $19.99 for a two-goldfish mold. Hmmm... let's see, I'll have to make at least 8 fish to make it worth of my investment. I just hoped that it would work like the picture showed.

What to use for batter? A quick Google search resulted in abundance of recipes but I got lazy. I figured pancake/waffle mix would do. Guess what??? I was right! Whoo-hoo!

So home-made Taiyaki is possible. Look at my creation. Aren't they cute? So far, I made over 10 times over the weekend. I got to eat one, the rest were devoured within minutes. Demand over Supply. Now I know why it's so expensive.

Happy goldfish making everyone!