Dorayaki (どら焼き)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Put the rinsed azuki in a heavy 3-4 litre saucepan with 1 litre of cold water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat, then boil hard for 5 minutes and drain in a sieve, discarding the purple-brown water. This is shibukiri, the astringency cut, and it removes the tannins that make homemade an taste harsh and dusty; drain it any sooner and a dry, dusty bitterness stays in the finished paste. Do not soak azuki beforehand, whatever other dried beans have taught you: their skins are thin, and soaked beans burst and shed their skins before the interiors are cooked, giving a muddy paste with no whole beans left in it.
2. 2 Return the drained beans to the pan with 800 ml fresh cold water, bring back to a boil, then drop the heat until the surface barely shivers, around 95C (203F), with only two or three bubbles breaking at a time. Cover with an otoshibuta (drop lid) or a round of baking parchment cut to sit directly on the beans, and cook 60-90 minutes. Top up with just-boiled water from a kettle whenever beans start to peek above the surface: a bean that is exposed to the air toughens and will stay stubbornly hard for the rest of the cook, no matter how long you simmer it. Cold water added mid-cook does the same damage, so always top up with hot.
3. 3 Test for doneness by lifting out three beans onto a saucer, letting them cool for a few seconds so they do not scald you, then crushing each between thumb and finger: each should collapse to a smooth paste with no chalky or gritty core. Test three, not one, because azuki cook unevenly and a single soft bean will flatter the pot. If any resist, keep simmering and re-test at 10 minute intervals.
4. 4 Drain the beans over a bowl, reserving the cooking liquid, then return the beans to the dry pan with 100 ml of that liquid. Set over low heat and add the 180 g sugar in three equal additions, stirring gently with a wooden spatula and letting each addition dissolve completely and bubble for 2 minutes before the next. Adding all the sugar at once pulls water straight out of the beans by osmosis and they shrivel into hard, grainy pellets that no amount of further cooking will soften.
5. 5 Raise the heat to medium-low and cook the paste down for 15-25 minutes, stirring constantly with a flat wooden spatula and scraping the base and the corners so it cannot catch. It is ready when a channel drawn through the paste with the spatula closes back over in 2-3 seconds and a spatula-load falls off in one heavy clump rather than dribbling. Stir in the salt, which sharpens the sweetness and makes the beans taste more of themselves. Stop while it still looks slightly too loose in the pan: an stiffens dramatically as it cools, and paste cooked to a firm consistency over heat will be dry, crumbly and will crack open when you spread it.
6. 6 Spread the an on a tray in a layer about 2 cm deep, lay cling film directly on the surface so it cannot form a skin, and cool to room temperature, about 60 minutes. You should have around 600 g, which is comfortably more than the sandwiches need. Make the batter while it cools.
7. 7 Whisk the eggs and 180 g sugar in a large bowl for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture pales slightly, thickens to the texture of single cream and no longer feels gritty when you rub a little between finger and thumb; you are dissolving sugar, not building a foam, so keep the whisk in the mixture rather than lifting air into it. Undissolved sugar melts on the hot griddle and leaves dark speckled patches on what should be an even skin. Whisk in the honey and mirin until completely incorporated. The honey is structural, not decorative: it holds water in the crumb, gives the skins their glossy even tan and their faint chew, and is the reason a dorayaki eaten the next day is still soft. Sugar syrup or golden syrup will brown but will not taste right.
8. 8 Sift the flour and baking powder over the eggs and whisk from the centre outwards for 20-30 seconds, stopping the moment the batter is smooth and glossy with no dry patches. Any further mixing builds gluten and gives tough, rubbery skins that dome, crack and peel away from the filling. Cover the bowl and rest the batter 30 minutes at room temperature: hydrating the flour and relaxing the gluten is what allows the batter to spread itself into a clean circle later.
9. 9 After resting, whisk in the water 1 tablespoon at a time until the batter falls from the whisk in an unbroken ribbon that sinks flat into the surface in about 3 seconds; depending on your flour this takes 100-120 ml. Batter left too thick spreads into thick ovals with pale raw centres; thinned too far it bakes lacy and full of holes and tears when you lift it.
10. 10 Heat a flat heavy griddle or a 28 cm non-stick or well-seasoned steel frying pan over medium-low to 160-170C (320-340F) - a drop of batter should take 8-10 seconds to set and take colour. Wipe the surface with kitchen paper carrying a few drops of oil, then wipe again with clean dry paper until the pan looks matte rather than shiny; any visible film of oil fries the batter and gives a freckled, blotchy surface instead of the even kitsune-iro tan. Lift the pan off the heat and rest it on a damp folded cloth for 10 seconds before the first disc, the standard trick for stopping the first batch coming out darker than the rest.
11. 11 Pour a scant 50 ml (about 3 tablespoons) of batter from a ladle held 4-5 cm above one spot and let it spread itself into a disc of about 8-9 cm; never push it out with the back of a spoon, which gives ragged edges and an uneven crumb. Working two or three discs at a time, cook 90 seconds to 2 minutes, until the surface loses its wet sheen, bubbles rise across it and the ones at the centre burst and stay open, and the edge dulls. Flip once with an offset spatula and cook the second side only 30-45 seconds, until just set and still blond: that side becomes the inside, and browning it makes the sandwich dry. Repeat, wiping the pan and briefly cooling it on the damp cloth between batches, for 16 discs.
12. 12 Stack the discs on a plate as they come off and keep them under a barely damp cloth or in a lidded container - left uncovered they go leathery within minutes and will crack when you fold them around the filling. Cool 10 minutes, then sort into 8 matched pairs by size.
13. 13 Mound a generous 60 g of an in the centre of the pale side of one disc of each pair, doming it high in the middle and leaving a clean 1 cm border all round. Cap with its partner pale side down and press the rim lightly between finger and thumb to seal. The finished shape should be fat in the middle and thin at the rim, like a hand drum, not a flat even sandwich; spread the an flat to the edge instead and it squeezes out of the seam as you press.
14. 14 Wrap each dorayaki individually in cling film and rest at room temperature for at least 2 hours, ideally 4. This is not optional resting: moisture migrates out of the an into the skins, the crumb turns soft and slightly translucent and the two halves grip the filling, whereas one eaten straight from the pan tastes dry and falls apart in the hand. Serve at room temperature, whole and unwrapped at the table, with hot sencha or houjicha to cut the sweetness. Wrapped, they keep 2 days at room temperature; do not refrigerate, as the cold stales the skins overnight. The roughly 120 g of leftover an keeps 1 week covered in the fridge or 3 months frozen.

// CLASSIFICATIONS