銅鑼燒 Dorayaki - Japanese Red Bean Pancake

The other day my niece tagged me something from Youtube on Facebook.  It was a game that we used to play many years ago.  A Doraemon game!  When I saw the Dorayaki on the screen, I said to myself "I must make this"!  This Japanese red bean pancake was my son's favourite at Dream Food Japanese Restaurant, Centre Point Shopping Mall.

This pancake is Doraemon's (a robot cat) favourite food.  Dora in Japanese means "gong" and perhaps that's how the name Dorayaki originated as the shape is smilar to a gong.

There's a legend saying that there was a samurai named Benkei hiding in a farmer's home and he forgot to bring along his dora "gong" when he left.  The farmer then used the gong to cook the pancake, thus came the name Dorayaki.

Here are the ingredients:

1 cup (160g) AP flour

3 large eggs

120g castor sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp milk

300g red bean paste, or more

makes 8 yummilicious Dorayaki

Method:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, milk and honey until well combine.

2. Sift in flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix well.  Cover and rest for about 20 minutes. 

3. Heat a medium non-stick pan on medium heat. You can wipe the pan with paper towel that is dipped in oil, but I made mine without brushing or wiping oil on the pan.

4. Using a ladle, drop the batter carefully to create a round pancake.  When the surface started to bubble, flip the pancake over and cook the other side.

5. Cover the cooked pancakes with towel to prevent them from drying.  Sandwich two pancakes with the red bean paste.