Hotteok (Korean Sweet Filled Pancakes)

About This Recipe

Hotteok (호떡) is one of Korea's most beloved street foods — thick, yeasted pancakes with a crispy fried exterior and a molten, caramelized filling of brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts. The dough is made from a combination of wheat flour and sweet rice flour (chapssal-garu), which gives hotteok its characteristic chewy, slightly glutinous interior. After a brief rise, the dough is portioned, stuffed with the sweet filling, sealed, flattened on a hot oiled griddle, and pressed with a special hotteok press (or spatula) that compresses the pancake and creates the crispy, lacey-edged shell while the interior filling melts into a pool of fragrant, liquid caramel. Hotteok stalls are a fixture at Korean winter street markets (particularly around Gwangjang Market in Seoul), and the sight of vendors pressing rows of sizzling pancakes on outdoor griddles while bundled-up customers line up in the cold is one of the defining images of Korean street food culture. A good hotteok should be eaten immediately, while the filling is still liquid and the shell still crisp.

Ingredients

Serves 8

• 200 gall-purpose flour
• 100 gsweet rice flour (chapssal-garu)
• 1 tspinstant yeast
• 1 tbspsugar
• ½ tspsalt
• 200 mlwarm water (40°C)
• 1 tbspvegetable oil(for dough)
• ½ cupdark brown sugar (muscovado)
• 1 tspground cinnamon
• ½ cupwalnuts or mixed nuts(roughly chopped)
• 4 tbspvegetable oil(for frying)

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the dough

   Combine both flours, yeast, sugar and salt. Add warm water and oil. Mix until a shaggy dough forms, then knead 5 minutes until smooth. The dough will be slightly sticky. Cover and rise 1 hour until doubled.

   Sweet rice flour makes the dough sticky — oil your hands rather than adding more flour.

2. 2

   Make the filling

   Combine brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped walnuts in a bowl. Mix well.

3. 3

   Portion and fill

   Divide risen dough into 8 equal balls. Flatten each ball in your palm, place 1 heaping tablespoon of filling in the center, then gather edges and pinch tightly to seal completely.

4. 4

   Fry and press

   Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Place 2–3 filled balls sealed-side down. Immediately press flat with a spatula (or hotteok press) to about 1cm thickness. Cook 2–3 minutes until the bottom is golden brown.

   Don't press too thin — the filling needs space to expand.

5. 5

   Flip and finish

   Flip carefully and cook another 2–3 minutes. The filling inside will have melted into liquid caramel. Serve immediately.

Variations

• •

  Japchae hotteok: savory version filled with glass noodles, vegetables and soy sauce instead of sugar.

• •

  Sunflower seed hotteok (ssi hotteok): popular Busan variant stuffed with mixed seeds and brown sugar.

Storage

Hotteok is a fresh-eat only dish and does not store well. The raw dough can be refrigerated overnight before frying — pull from fridge, shape, fill and fry directly.

Frequently Asked Questions