We’ve had hotteok, (Korean “pan-fried” cinnamon sugar filled sticky buns) in the past because mother deer often buys them frozen at the korean market, but we’ve never made them before. So, baking adventuring we went!
Making the pancakes
Surprisingly, these weren’t very difficult to make and we’re already trying to figure out when we’re going to make them again! We ended up frying half the batch and baking the other to see how they’ll turn out both ways. For the baked ones we put then in the oven at 375F for 30 mins. Lil’ bun liked the panfried version better because she liked how the filling was evenly dispersed throughout the entire pancake.
Mother deer and I both liked the baked version of hotteok better because we thought that the pan fried version still felt a little oily when we bit into them. Maybe next time we’ll make a big batch of them and freeze them (of course we’ll flatten them out before putting them in the freezer), so we can have them as a quick breakfast.
Ingredients (makes 12):
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup glutinous rice flour
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon canola oil
- 1 1/2 cup warm soy milk (or regular milk)
- about 1 – 2 teaspoon oil for pan frying
For the filling:
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoon chopped walnuts
- 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds (optional)
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds (optional)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Let’s go!
1. Mix all purpose flour, glutinous rice flour, yeast, and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the lukewarm milk and 1 teaspoon of oil to the flour mixture. Stir everything together until incorporated with wooden spoon. The dough should still be sticky when you’re done.
3. Cover the your dough with a tea towel and let it rise in a warm place for 45 min – 1 hour. When the dough has doubled, take your dough ball out of the bowl and punch down the center.
4. Let your dough rest for 5 – 10 minutes on the cutting board. While your dough is resting, mix together the filling ingredients of brown sugar, chopped walnut, cinnamon and seeds (if using) in a small bowl.
5. Split your dough into 12 small dough balls about 2″ in diameter. Then stretch the dough out into a 3 – 4″ circle with your hand and place 1 tablespoon of your filling mixture into the center of it. Pull the edges of the circle together to make the edges meet in the center to inclose the filling. Lightly roll the dough to make it reform it’s ball shape.
6. Heat 1 – 2 teaspoons of oil in a fry pan on medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, drop the dough balls in the pan.
7. Let the dough balls sit in the pan for about 10 seconds before pushing them down with a spatula to flatten them until they are about 1 cm thick. Flip it to the other side when the bottom becomes golden brown (this should take 30 seconds to 1 min).
8. When both sides of the hotteok are cooked, transfer then onto a plate lined with paper towels so that some of the oil gets absorbed.
