Have a snack, have a Dorayaki!

I remember growing up reading Japanese comic books such as Doraemon and always wondered why the little blue robot cat would do anything just to get his share of the Japanese pancakes--Dorayaki! My mom used to occasionally buy Dorayaki for us as our breakfast but I never really used to like the taste. Maybe it's because our local Japanese bakery always put way too much of the the red bean paste filling that it gets overly sweet and leaves you with the nauseas after-taste. Anyway, it has been a few years since I started craving for Dorayaki again, and since I couldn't get the fresh ones in Melbourne, I decided to try and make them myself. I looked through the internet and came across this recipe which seemed pretty easy. (Apologies for not citing the source, I can't remember where I got it from. Shall link up the site when I found out)

Dorayaki

Ingredients
Cake flour 180 g
Eggs 3
Sugar 150 g
Mirin/Honey 2 tsp
baking soda 1/2 tsp
water 100 cc
a pinch of salt
oil to grease the pan
ready made red bean paste (available from Asian groceries)

1) Mixed baking soda with 1 tsp of water, leave to rise. Sift flour 3 times
2) Whisk eggs with sugar until stiff peaks form
3) Add in the baking soda, mirin and salt to the egg mixture
4) fold in the flour until combined
5) Refrigerate for 30 minutes while covered with plastic wrap
6) Pan fried like pancakes and sandwiched them together with red bean paste. (You can always make your own red bean paste if you are really ambitious, but I got lazy)

The Dorayaki turned out pretty well (relative to my expectations that is), and the fact that I can adjust the amount of the red bean paste to my liking makes it even better! Do try it out if you had your sudden Japanese snacks craving!