Hotteok
One of Korea's best-loved winter street snacks, sold straight from the griddle, often in paper cups. They are pancakes of yeast dough with some glutinous rice flour, filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and peanuts and fried flat. They are crisp outside, chewy within, and the sugar melts into a hot cinnamon syrup. The dough is very sticky — you work it with oiled hands. Take care eating: the syrup inside is very hot.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Dough 10 min
- Rising 60 min
- Filling 5 min
- Filling the dough 15 min
- Frying in batches 25 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneMix a sticky dough
Mix both flours with the sugar, yeast and salt. Pour in the milk and a spoonful of oil and stir with a spoon for 3–4 minutes into a smooth, very soft and sticky dough. Do not add flour.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Leave to rise
Cover the bowl and leave somewhere warm an hour, until doubled.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Sticky and full of bubbles — that is right.Mix the filling
Mix the brown sugar with the cinnamon and chopped peanuts.
Ingredients: 80 g brown sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 40 g unsalted peanuts, chopped
Divide the dough
Oil your hands. Knock back the dough and divide it into 8 equal pieces (about 70 g each).
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Fill and seal
Flatten a piece of dough on your palm into a disc, put a heaped spoonful of filling (an eighth of it) in the middle and gather the edges, pinching them firmly shut. There must be no gap — the sugar would leak out and burn in the pan.
Ingredients: 80 g brown sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 40 g unsalted peanuts, chopped
Firmly sealed — the syrup stays inside.Fry and press
Heat a spoonful of oil in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Put in 2–3 balls seam down and fry for a minute. Turn them over and press straight away with a spatula into pancakes about 1 cm thick (about 12 cm across).
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Pressed with a spatula — flat and even.Cook both sides
Fry 2–3 minutes per side, until golden and crisp and the sugar inside has melted. Fry the remaining batches, adding oil — about 25 minutes in all.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Serve with care
Serve warm, ideally in paper cups. Warn everyone: the syrup inside is much hotter than the dough and burns easily — best to wait a minute or two.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 50 g glutinous rice flour · 1 tbsp sugar · 5 g dried yeast · ½ tsp salt · 220 ml lukewarm milk · 5 tbsp oil (for the dough, your hands and frying)
Before you start
With seeds
In Busan, hotteok are slit after frying and stuffed with a mix of toasted sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and nuts.
Without rice flour
Glutinous rice flour gives the chewy texture. Without it, use 300 g of plain flour — the pancakes will be more bready.
Storage
Hotteok are best straight from the pan. Reheat cooled ones in a dry pan for a minute each side.
