Amigurumi Taiyaki — Amigurumi Sweets by Ichikawa Miyuki (Crochet Book)

Leveled up and made the taiyaki amigurumi from the crochet book Amigurumi Sweets by Ichikawa Miyuki! Confession: this amigurumi was also a reason why I bought the book, despite feeling overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of the pattern format. But since the castella cake and the roll cake, I felt a little more confident in attempting patterns from the book.

A wagashi和菓子 that is a classic Japanese street snack known worldwide, taiyaki鯛焼き was created in the Edo period. It was originally like the round imagawayaki今川焼き but its shaped was changed to resemble the sea bream (tai鯛), hence its name. The outer batter is made with regular waffle batter, and it is most commonly filled with anko (red bean paste), but these days it's common to find other fillings like chocolate, cheese, custard.... We usually get the round-shaped imagawayaki with similar fillings here in Singapore, which we call "Japanese pancake" as a shorthand name.

My taiyaki amigurumi has batter made with Scheepjes Catona No.383 Ginger Gold, the anko is polyester fiberfill, and my "griddlepan" was my trusty Clover Amour 2.5mm crochet hook. In terms of yarn colour, I think perhaps Scheepjes Catona No.179 Topaz or Schachenmayr Catania No.179 Camel may be closer to the actual colour of taiyaki. Unfortunately, I had used up both skeins in my yarn stash.

Do you start from the head or the tail? (IG post).

Overall, I really enjoyed making this piece. The work looks fairly realistic, and the puff stitches employed in the main body kind of replicates the fish scales. The pattern also makes for good practice as it employs a wide variety of stitches, including less commonly used ones (in amigurumi), like the the puff stitch (ps) and front post double crochet stitch (fpdc). In this way, it's a good pattern to challenge oneself with, or so I think. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that the stuffing does show a little through the gaps between the puff stitches, which make up a majority of the body.

Making this brought back 2 particular memories of eating taiyaki in Japan. One was our 2017 BFF trip, where we stayed in Asakusa, one of Tokyo's old shitamachi and picked up some delicious taiyaki at the shotengai on our way back to the hotel.

The other memory was the sakura-flavoured taiyaki we had at the Kawazu Sakura Festival on a 2019 trip. That one was a little different from regular taiyaki, as the batter was fluffier and more mochi-like, and did not seem to be the same as the regular waffle batter used in regular taiyaki. Possibly it had shiratama-ko included in the batter. It was also infused with sakura flavour, I think maybe with salt-pickled sakura blossoms, and the batter was so lightly coloured that the pink showed up well, and prettily! The filling was shiroan (sweetened white bean paste) instead of the usual anko. It was definitely a lovely treat: warm and salty-sweet, totally spot-on for that chilly spring day among early-blooming kawazu-zakura!

Sakura takiyaki at the Kawazu Sakura Festival in Kawazu, February 2019.

Okay, I thought I would round off this post with a few final thoughts on the Amigurumi Sweets book, mostly based on my personal experience and some retrospection. In my castella cake post, I mentioned some reasons why I think this book is not suitable for amigurumi beginners. Namely, that it does not use the US/UK written pattern format that is typical outside of Japan, so it requires some crochet knowledge and brain work to understand / work out the crochet diagrams (or crochet charts), and to figure out the steps. Not an issue that can't be fixed with some preparation and a little study.

At first, the pattern format appears to be counter-intuitive, for want of a better word. I say "appears to be" because after doing some research, picking up some information, chalking up some experience, and doing some brain work (prep work I mean), I have found that it's not as counter-intuitive as I originally thought. It's more an issue of adjusting to the culture shock. That said, I won't say it was easy and smooth sailing to get to this (personal) milestone. It did take working through some beginner-level crochet diagrams, browsing the Internet for tutorials and resources, and occasionally struggling through a couple of Japanese posts on crochet patterns with my basic level Japanese, etc. It would definitely help if I knew someone had experience with such patterns. I was also able to figure out how to read the crochet diagrams with help from the following English language resources:

• How to Read a Japanese Crochet Pattern by purlyshells;
• Guide to Reading Japanese Patterns by We Love Amigurumi; and
• Japanese Pattern Tutorials by dancingbarefoot.

Once again, another challenge accepted!

Finally, I think it's not a question of which format is better. Like I said above, it's probably more an issue of adjusting to the culture shock, and getting used to reading crochet diagrams. I think there are both pros and cons to each type of pattern format. In fact, for this taiyaki pattern and the roll cake pattern (attempted here), I've come to the view that the crochet diagram is the better format to use as a guide. I did "translate" the taiyaki crochet diagram into a set of written instructions, for my personal notes... But honestly... writing out the steps in that format made it look, well, counter-intuitive. Really wordy and hard to visualise. It's a pattern that doesn't really translate easily to a set of written instructions. In contrast, looking at the crochet diagram made it a lot easier to envisage the process involved in making the item.

It's a little hard to explain all this without drawing some comparison. So maybe that warrants a post on its own. But that's for another time....

Materials/Tools used:

• Pattern: taiyaki from Amigurumi Sweets: Crochet Fancy Pastries and Desserts by Ichikawa Miyuki, translated from the original Japanese edition.
• Yarn: Scheepjes Catona No.383 Ginger Gold
• 2.5mm crochet hook
• Polyester fiberfill