Hotteok (호떡) - A Delectable Korean Treat!

Hotteok, originally uploaded by Dessert Night.

Hotteok (호떡) is one of those treats you buy from the street vendors (포장마차) in Korea that you not only never regret getting, but wish the street vendors would come to America to sell them as well.  It's basically a pancake filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts if desired. It's cooked so that the brown sugar oooooooozes out of the pancake, and it's just... so good.  Hotteok memories are happy memories. :)  I remember eating hotteok in Surak San (one of the mountains in Korea): it was big, thin, crisp, oozy, and... just make sure you pick up some when you go to Korea. 

I've made it a couple times.  There are mixes you can buy from the grocery store that have the dough mix and filling mix for you.  Tried it, didn't like it.  I also tried it from a recipe online.  One of the difficulties with making hotteok is that the dough is EXTREMELY sticky.  Then you have to put oil all over your hands so it doesn't stick to your hands... but that got old really quick.  I also found that they were really doughy, and not as thin as I'd like.  After doing some research, it was apparent I needed to try adding some rice flour as it would help with the thickness and the texture.  So then I stumbled upon a recipe from I love butter and sugar that I thought turned out really well.

Here is our adapted recipe:

Pancake:

* 3 teaspoons lukewarm water
* 1/4 teaspoon white sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon dry-active yeast
* 6 tablespoons milk (7 if it's too dry)
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup sweet rice flour (We used a Japanese brand found at the local asian grocery store)
* Pinch of salt
* Canola oil

Filling:

* Scant 1/4 cup brown sugar
* 2-3 tablespoons peanuts, toasted and finely chopped
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon


To give it a go:

1.  Combine water, sugar, and yeast in a medium sized bowl.  Then turn on the oven light and let it sit for 10 minutes inside your oven.  The heat from the light will get the yeast to bubble. 
2. Add in milk, all-purpose flour, glutinous rice flour, and salt, then mix until it's all incorporated.
3. Cover bowl with cloth (or plastic wrap or a paper towel, but trying to be green here), put it back in the oven with the oven light on, and let it rise for 3 hours. (Tip: If you really can't wait to eat your hotteok, we did do it for an hour and half, it was fine.)
4. After the dough has doubled in size, knead the dough for a minute.  Also mix the filling together in a separate bowl.
5. Put some canola oil to coat the bottom of your pan, and set the heat to medium to medium.
6. Portion out the dough into golf-sized balls. (Tip: If the dough is VERY sticky, put some oil onto your hands for the remainder of the recipe.  This helps a LOT, although I found I didn't need to do that with this particular recipe)
7. For each ball of dough, flatten it in your hand and lay a generous spoonful of the filling.  Then gather the dough around the filling so as to encase the filling with the dough.
8. Place a ball with the gathered side down onto the pan.  Let it sit for 10 seconds.  Then flatten with a spatula (Tip: Again, if the dough is very sticky, make sure your spatula is oiled).  Flatten it several times, switching your angle.  The thickness should be about or smaller than the thickness of a pancake.  Fill your pan this way with 2 or 3 pancakes at a time.
9.  Once a golden brown is reached, flip the hotteok over.  Cook both sides to a golden brown.
10. Eat!  But be careful, the inside will be very hot!

Jen and I made this for our end of the year Korean project, and it turned out to be a hit!  I give ourselves an A+.

If you try out the recipe, be sure to leave a comment to let us know how it went! It also lets us know we have readers!

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