Taiyaki Maker: Bake Your Drawing

Batter cooks for as long as it touches the hot mold. The lines you draw first sit there longer than the batter poured later, so they brown more (one step every 2 seconds, up to 7 steps). Pancake artists use the same trick: outline first, fill later.

The side facing the fire turns golden in about 4.5 seconds, and the other side cooks at a quarter of that speed. So flip just before the drawing side reaches the golden zone, then pull it out when the back gets there too. Never flip and the belly stays raw, so it counts as pale. The three molds run slightly hotter or cooler (about 6%), like a real street grill, so pulling at the edge of the zone can leave one pastry a bit dark.

Taiyaki is a Japanese fish-shaped cake, usually filled with sweet red bean paste. It is said to have started in 1909 at Naniwaya, a shop in Tokyo, and the shape is a sea bream (tai), a fish of good luck. Korea's version, bungeoppang, arrived in the 1930s and took the shape of a crucian carp instead. It is now the classic Korean winter street snack (per Wikipedia's Taiyaki and Bungeo-ppang articles).

Same idea, different pan. In pancake art you pour batter lines on a griddle and the early lines brown first. Here you draw in a taiyaki mold, close it, flip it like a street vendor would, and the drawing comes out baked onto the pastry.

Red bean, custard, sweet potato and pizza. The filling does not change your score. It shows up on the result card and in the one-line review. Red bean is the classic; custard is the most common second choice at stalls.

Yes. A plain one comes out as "the classic". If you color in the whole mold, almost all of it turns dark brown. While drawing, "Undo" removes the last stroke and "Clear" starts over.

Post is 1080×1350 (4:5) and wallpaper is 1080×1920 (9:16). The wallpaper leaves the top clear so your lock screen clock does not cover the pastry. Images are made on your device and never uploaded.

The link itself carries a compressed copy of your drawing (up to 420 points), how well it was baked, the filling and the shop name. Nothing is stored on a server, so only people with the link can see it. This device only remembers how many taiyaki you have baked.