Taiyaki Fish Cakes with Cheese Filling, Sweetened with Monk Fruit
Sweets and drinksBaked GoodsJapanBatter rested 15 minutes, 2 to 3 minutes per side
These taiyaki fish cakes bake up evenly golden, with a thin shell that crisps at the fins and tail and a thick, stretchy cheese filling in the middle. They smell of butter and balance salt against sweetness, so they taste good even cold.
The hardest part is the mold temperature: too hot and the cakes come out patchy with burnt fins, too cool and they turn pale and stick. The filling has to be cooked thick and cooled completely, since warm filling leaks out at the seam when the mold closes. After sifting, resting the batter for 15 minutes lets it swell fully, giving a softer and more even crumb.
This batch weighs about 935g, at roughly 209 calories per 100g.
Method
Blend 180ml of oat milk with 4 soft cheese wedges until completely smooth.
Add 9g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, 20g of unsalted butter and 30g of mozzarella cheese, heat until everything melts, then pour in 15g of tapioca starch slaked with 10ml of water or milk. Lower the heat, stir steadily until it comes back to a boil, then tip it into a bowl to cool completely.
Make the batter: beat 2 chicken eggs with 60g of cooking oil, 220g of oat milk and 54g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend. For a lighter cake, separate the whites and whip them as you would for a sponge.
Sift in 170g of all purpose flour (bot mi so 8), stir until the batter is completely smooth and leave it 15 minutes to swell fully.
Heat both halves of the fish mold, about 3 minutes per side on the lowest setting, then brush a thin film of oil into the mold.
Load the batter into a piping bag, pipe it halfway up the mold, set the filling in the middle and pipe more batter to cover the filling completely.
Close the mold and cook for 2 to 3 minutes per side until evenly golden.
Tips
After each batch, resting the mold on a damp cloth for about 2 minutes brings the heat down before the next one, since an overheated mold makes the cakes patchy or burnt.
The filling has to be completely cool before it goes in, because warm filling leaks out at the edge of the mold.
A full 15 minutes of resting gives a soft batter that rises evenly rather than a dense one.
The cheese filling sets thick and stretchy rather than runny once cool, which makes these good to carry.
Fish shaped molds are sold at baking equipment shops.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.