Taiyaki filled with Yuzu Custard Cream & Sweet Black Beans

I like baking, and I think homemade sweets are the best (if I can say that myself :)).

But since there are only two people in our household, I hesitate to make a large amount unless I can freeze it.

Taiyaki is a good choice when you just want a little something for a snack.

It looks fancy, but it’s actually pretty easy to make (as long as you have filling ready) with this trusted Taiyaki pan which I brought from the U.S.

Traditionally, Taiyaki is filled with sweet “Azuki” bean paste, but since I had beautiful black beans from Happy Grocers, I used them, and it worked perfectly.

I was planning to have custard cream as well, so instead of making bean “paste”, I sweetened the beans but kept the shape of the beans to give a nice texture to the custard cream.

When we were at one of our favorite beverage places, Yuzu House, the other day, we saw this being sold on the counter.

I love yuzu, and this dried yuzu peel was full of flavor, slightly sweetened, and absolutely delicious.

(I will definitely buy more next time we go there.)

So I decided to add this to my Taiyaki to give a little twist.

There are so many different recipes for Taiyaki batter, but I like this recipe (Japanese) because it creates the crispy (vs. soft) texture; the recipe does not call for eggs, and that is probably one of the reasons for this particular texture.

The recipe calls for cake flour.

In my pantry I only keep all-purpose flour and bread flour, so I “made” cake flour by adding a little corn starch to my all-purpose flour.

Also, I used honey in place of mirin, which I don’t keep in my pantry either.

The ingredients are important, but pouring the batter “thin” is equally important to create the crispiness.

For the vegan custard cream I used my go-to recipe.

(I used oat milk and soy milk both (I didn’t have enough soy milk) this time, which is why the color is a little darker. It still tasted great though.)