Electric Taiyaki Maker

When I was growing up, I loved these little snack of little fishes.  It is quite popular in Japan, as a matter of fact, they purposely have booths with windows for you to watch them make these.  They are called Taiyaki, and quite popular.  They are even sold in different shapes, but the first popular shape is the fish.

The ingredients are simple, you have pancake batter.  In our case, we used the gluten free batter.  I you want another batter, here's another recipe I found.  The filling can be whatever you want.

I bought the fishy waffle maker from JBox, which has lots of awesome Japanese stuff.  

So you first brush oil on the sides, and put the batter down.  The first run is always a dud, you can just plan on trashing it.  You put down a small batter and cook it for a minute.

Then, you put a small piece of filling in the middle.  I've seen in Japan that they put cream cheese, apple jam, and chestnut.  For the Red Bean (Aduzi) Paste, I bought it from Asian Supermarket, and let me tell you, it's easier than to make it myself.  

Then you put on the second half of the batter to cover the filling.  The batter had to be even, otherwise parts of it will not have anything, or it'll overflow.  You put the cover on and wait for 90 seconds.

See, it overflowed like that.  If you have any kind of the waffle makers, the same issue will happen.  Like the new cake pop makers and donut makers, fill them part way, or else you'll have tons to clean off after.

Here's a cheeky video that I found funny but it was also instructional... enjoy!