Takoyaki dumplings are a ubiquitous snack in Japan, but we’ve never seen them like this before!

One of the simplest pleasures in Japanese cuisine are the dumplings called takoyaki. A specialty of the city of Osaka, takoyaki are small balls of batter with a morsel of octopus in the center.

An inexpensive comfort food that’s casual enough to be eaten with a toothpick, takoyaki spheres are cooked until they’re a tantalizing shade of brown, then dusted with seaweed flakes, sauce, and/or mayonnaise.

The takoyaki pictured above are representative of how they’ll almost every time you encounter the tempting treats. However, Japanese Twitter user @kyooochang wanted the batch of takoyaki she was making to have a little more visual impact, and the minor tweak she made to the traditional takoyaki recipe got the job done in a startling way.

Ordinary takoyaki batter has a cream color that’s not unlike pancake mix, but @kyooochang decided to stir in a measure of royal blue food coloring.

The result was a batch of dazzling azure takoyaki unlike any we’ve seen before.

Takoyaki are simple to make, in that the number of required steps is pretty small. Basically all you have to do is mix the batter, pour it into the compartments of a specialized takoyaki maker, and drop in the fillings. You’ll need to periodically stir the dumplings while they’re cooking, though, to keep the transfer of heat even and prevent scorching the batter. Not being a pro, @kyooochang let some of the dumplings cook a bit too long in one position, but even this worked out to her artistic advantage. The batter in the charred areas turned a greenish brown, creating the effect of continents rising out of a brilliant blue sea and making each takoyaki look like a miniature alternate Earth.

▼ Things get even more planetary when a squeeze of mayo gives each dumpling a visual cloud layer.

Sadly, unlike the black ninja takoyaki that were being sold in Osaka last autumn, these royal blue takoyaki aren’t commercially available. Making your own should be a snap, though, as long as you’ve got a takoyaki maker (which can also be used to make all sorts of other cool things).

This isn’t the first time we’ve ben wowed by one of @kyooochang’s artistic endeavors, either, as she previously caught our eyes with her custom-made Godzilla earring. Many creative individuals dream of changing the world through their endeavors, and while @kyooochang may not have achieved such a lofty goal, with her amazing-looking taiyaki, she’s at least giving us all chance to eat it.

Source: IT Media, Twitter/@kyooochang
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s thinking he really should use his takoyaki maker more often.