The other day I really wanted to eat some dorayaki. Dorayaki is different from a pancake. I had wondered if it would taste the same without the egg flavour but then I remembered about “flax egg” so I decided to give it a try. The dorayaki pancakes tasted floury right after baked, maybe because I compared it to the ones I remembered eating in the stores, so I thought it had failed. But the next morning I tried it and was surprised. Although it didn’t’ have the egg flavour, it was perfectly fluffy and moist, a good dorayaki! I couldn't help telling you about it before I posted the recipe here.
After that I tried to make another one
using mashed banana. It turns to be more like pancake but you can reduce the amount of sugar you use by using the sweetness of the
banana. If you like the flavour of banana in your dorayaki, you could try that as
well. If anybody happens to find a better egg replacer for this recipe please
let me know. But you should use baking soda to make dorayaki, not baking powder as they work differently.
For the dorayaki dough, as a reference, I used a recipe from my scrap book where I have kept recipe columns from fashion magazines when I was young. I made a few modifications of my own from the original recipe as well as the egg replacement. I don’t remember the name of the magazine I got it from unfortunately, but I got the instructions for the flax egg from the minimalistbaker.com ‘s recipe on how to make a flax egg.
Ingredients (makes 5 dorayaki)
3 tbsp flaxseed
7.5 tbsp of water
1 cup of brown sugar (for those who don’t like brown sugar feel free to use whatever sugar replacement you like, however if you used a refined sugar it might come out too sweet)
1 tsp baking soda (baking powder is NG)
1 tsp vinegar
2 tbsp mirin (rice vinegar, can be found at Asian food stores)
4 tbsp water (you will add 2 tbsp at a time in the recipe)
1 cup all purpose flour
Cooking oil (for frying, canola oil etc is sufficient)
Anko you can add as much as you like, I added about 2-3 tbsp per dorayaki, so about 1 cup of Anko.
Here’s my recipe for anko (it's tsubu-an)
7.5 tbsp of water
1 cup of brown sugar (for those who don’t like brown sugar feel free to use whatever sugar replacement you like, however if you used a refined sugar it might come out too sweet)
1 tsp baking soda (baking powder is NG)
1 tsp vinegar
2 tbsp mirin (rice vinegar, can be found at Asian food stores)
4 tbsp water (you will add 2 tbsp at a time in the recipe)
1 cup all purpose flour
Cooking oil (for frying, canola oil etc is sufficient)
Anko you can add as much as you like, I added about 2-3 tbsp per dorayaki, so about 1 cup of Anko.
Here’s my recipe for anko (it's tsubu-an)
Instructions
It will settle into an egg-like substance.
2) While wisking the flax egg more, slowly add in the sugar. Then wisk and mix in the baking soda, vinegar, mirin, and 2 tbsp of water.
3) Sift in the flour and stir it all together.
4) Once the ingredients are completely mixed together, wrap it with some cling film (or you can use a lid if you have one) and let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature.
5) Before frying, mix in the last 2 tbsp of water.
The
constancy of the dough should now be like this.
6) Using a non-stick fry pan, set the heat to medium and add some cooking oil and spread it on the pan using a paper towel.
7) Add
the batter as if you were making a pancake, trying to get the size close to
10cm/4inches as possible. Reduce heat to medium-low.
8) Once the batter starts to bubble and make crevices, check the colour to see if it’s cooked enough. Let it cook until a nice dark golden brown and then flip over and just lightly cook the other side. It will finish quickly and then you can remove it from the fry pan.
The lighter side should look like this. It might seem a little dark because of using brown sugar.
9) After cooking each piece, place the dorayaki with the light side facing down on a flat surface covered with a paper towel to cool.
I believe the reason to put them this way is so the inside of the dorayaki (the light side) will be flat and the outside will have a curve. If you pile them or when they stick to each other they will lose shape (from my own experience).
10) On the light side, add
your anko and then place another piece on top again with the light side facing
the inside. Align the pieces and then lightly press them together.
The shape reminds me of doraemon dorayaki and I wanted to eat them right away! They were good to eat right away, but they tasted really delicious the next day.
Have some fun and brand them with your own designs!
I forgot where I learned this from,
but when I was young I remember that I had made my mom a huge dorayaki with
“Happy Birthday” branded on the top. My parents had a metal chicken skewer
which could be heated up to brand letters on top. But I don’t have any metal
chicken skewers so instead I used a Korean stainless steel chopstick heated up
in the same fashion. I had 8 of them so I figured I could afford to waste one
for this. It’s bigger than a skewer so it took longer for it to heat up enough
but I was able to do it still. If you happen to have a barbeque skewer or
something similar that would be the best. You can brand pancakes etc with this
method.
Heat them up plenty over the fire.
If you use a skewer you will see the
colour of the skewer turn red as it gets hot so it will be easy to tell when
it’s ready. Please remember to be very careful when handling hot skewers!!
I hope you have a lot of fun making dorayaki!
For
all the people who were waiting for me to publish the dorayaki recipe, for all
of those who have commented about my recipe blog, for all those who have tried my
recipes, and for those who have shared my recipes, thank you very much.
Translated by Dan and Yumi
