With a fish shaped cake, you would think there is some fish related taste to it. Nothing of this with Taiyaki, a red bean paste filled hot cake. It is all sweetness here.
To make Taiyaki, there is first prepared dough which is similar to that of pancake or waffle mix. It is put into the sea bream shaped baking mold, the red bean paste is added on top of it and then the baking mold is closed, giving a finally a fish shaped cake with the red bean paste inside. Red bean paste is a Japanese sweet confectionery, called anko in Japanese. It is used in many Japanese confectionery products, other examples being daifuku and dorayaki.
The background of why the Taiyaki has a sea broom shape is unclear, but one thing that is certain that people have been selling Taiyaki for over 150 years now and it is still popular today.
