Imagawayaki


Imagawayaki is a Japanese dessert often found at Japanese festivals as well as outside Japan. It is made of batter in a special pan, and filled with sweet azuki bean paste, although it is becoming increasingly popular to use a wider variety of fillings such as vanilla custard, different fruit custards and preserves, curry, different meat and vegetable fillings, potato and mayonnaise. Imagawayaki are similar to Dorayaki, but the latter are two separate pancakes sandwiched around the filling after cooking, and are often served cold.
Imagawayaki began to be sold near the Kanda Imagawabashi bridge during
An'ei years in the Edo period. The name of Imagawayaki originates from this time.

Various names

Imagawayaki has various names by areas and eras.
In Taiwan they are commonly called "red bean cake". In the greater Taipei area they are referred to as "car wheel cake". However some of the older generation may directly use the Japanese term taiko manjū.

Philippines

The Filipino counterpart, locally known as Japanese Cake, is similar to imagawayaki but of a smaller serving size and is usually filled with cheese slices. This inexpensive snack is commonly found sold on special tricycle carts that have a built-in custom-made circular cooking mold. Other fillings are also available with sweet and savory fillings.