Sweet hotteok pancakes: attempting a Korean recipe

Finding interesting baking and pastry recipes to attempt is one of the things I enjoy the most, especially when they're this simple and tasty.

Hotteok are flour pancakes filled with sugar syrup on the inside, and are one of the most popular street snacks in Korea, particularly in the winter.

I wanted to try a Korean recipe at home, as I studied pastry cooking a years ago. I was even more interested in sweets. In Argentina, it's a little more difficult to get some of the ingredients that are used in Korea, so I looked for a recipe where I was able to obtain the main ingredients fairly easily.

The only problem I had was that here we are in summer, and hotteok is very popular in the winter because you're supposed to eat it hot. So it wasn’t the best dish for warm weather. However, after I bought all the ingredients, I waited until a rainy day that made the weather a bit cooler and pleasant enough to eat them.

When you have all the ingredients on the table, you're ready to make the hotteok.

Ingredients for 14 sweet pancakes:

350 g of all purpose flour

60 g rice flour

4 g dry yeast

10 g white sugar

100 g warm water

225 g milk

5 g salt

Filling:

160 g dark brown sugar

75 g crushed nuts of your preference (I chose almonds and walnuts) 

3 g cinnamon powder

50 g honey

For the hotteok dough:

Mix the water, dry yeast and white sugar into a bowl. Mix it well and let it sit for five minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients and knead it until the dough seems flexible and shiny.

Put it all into a greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap until it doubles in size due to the fermentation.

Once the dough is raised, release the gas and cut it into 14 pieces, 50 g each. Shape them all and let them stand for 15 minutes.

Take each piece and flatten it. Put a spoonful of the filling in the center and wrap it up tightly.

In a hot pan, add a thin layer of oil. Place two or three pieces of dough in the pan and smash them down a bit with your hands. When the bottom is lightly golden brown, flip it over and press the dough down with a professional press or with a steel potato masher covered with aluminum foil to make the cakes thin and wide.

Cook them until the bottom is golden brown, about one minute. Flip the pancake over one last time and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan with a lid and cook them until the sugary filing melts entirely.

Move the pancake onto a plate and repeat the process for each cake.

Eat them hot.

Enjoy!

My family and I liked these sweet pancakes a lot, and there were no leftovers. I think it's a really versatile recipe since you can add different fillings and play with flavors. I think quince jelly, representative of our traditional patisseries here in Argentina, would be ideal as a filling. I'll try this recipe again since it's cheap, satisfying and yummy. I´m looking forward to trying more Korean recipes very soon.

By Cintia Mancilla

Korea.net Honorary Reporter

Photos: Cintia Mancilla

Original recipe : http://misrecetasfavoritas2.blogspot.com.ar/2011/02/hotteok-panqueques-de-corea.html

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