To the rest of the world, we probably know about Dorayaki from the Doraemon animation. Dorayaki is Doraemon’s favourite food, we all know. But in fact, Doraemon was actually named after Dorayaki and it means Dorayaki monster. Dorayaki is a popular Japanese wagashi made of red bean paste sandwiched between 2 castella pancakes. Note that these are not regular pancakes – it’s sweet and dense thanks to the honey. Tastes like castella cake.

Dorayaki 

2 Eggs
80g White Sugar
1 tbsp Honey
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
50ml Water
130g Cake Flour
1~3 tsp Water

Filling:

Store bought anko (tsubuan or boiled azuki beans)
Fresh whipped cream *optional*

Method:

1. Beat room temperature eggs in a bowl lightly with a whisk.
2. Add in sugar and honey and mix in, beat until texture becomes thick and colour becomes lighter. Around 3 minutes.
3. Dissolve baking soda in water and add it to the egg mixture and mix.
4. Sieve in cake flour to the egg mixture and mix well with a whisk, getting rid of lumps but not over-mixing.
5. Allow batter to rest for 30 minutes, covered with cling wrap.
6. Adjust thickness of the batter by adding water a teaspoon at a time, until batter is can flow smoothly (around 3 tsp for me).
7. Heat frying pan to low heat, around 170 deg C (setting 2 out of 9 for mine) and lightly oil the surface. Ensure that no excess oil is on the surface.
8. Spoon some batter onto pan, letting it spread out by itself into 8 – 9cm circles.
9. When bubble form, flip it over immediately. The underside should be nicely brown. Cook the other side for 20 – 30 seconds and remove from pan. Repeat until batter is used up.
10. Match the pancakes with similar sizes.
11. Fill the dorayaki with either ready made anko or anko mixed with whipping cream. Wrap it with cling wrap and store at room temperature for up to a day. Doryaki with whipped cream anko must be eaten as soon as possible or stored chilled.

Notes:

The preparation is similar to making regular pancakes. Fry them on low heat in order to get a nice brown colour. When bubbles starts forming, flip it over. I waited too long for bubbles to appear and pop and my pancakes turned out too dry.

Nice bubbles, but this has been cooked for too long. Once small bubbles starts to appear you can start flipping.

It is also important that temperature is not too high, or else it will brown unevenly.

Alternatively, you can store Dorayaki in the freezer and thaw when ready to be eaten.