Hotteok — Korean sweet pancakes with a molten sugar centre

i. Origin & history

Hotteok arrived in Korea with Chinese merchants in the late nineteenth century. After the 1880s, when Chinese traders and workers began to settle in Korean port cities such as Incheon, they brought with them filled, griddle-cooked wheat breads similar to those of northern China. Those breads were adapted over the following decades to Korean tastes, and the sweet brown-sugar version became the one everyone knows.

The name tells that story. Ho (胡) is an old Sino-Korean word for foreigners from the north and west, historically used for Chinese and Central Asian peoples, and tteok means a rice cake or, more broadly, a dumpling-like dough food. So hotteok is, roughly, 'foreign cake'. Other Korean foods introduced from China carry the same prefix, such as hoppang, the steamed bun.

Through the twentieth century, hotteok became a cheap, filling street snack, especially after the Korean War, when wheat flour was more available than rice. Today they are made by street vendors across the country from autumn to spring, and many Koreans associate them with cold weather, school days and long queues at a favourite cart. Instant hotteok mixes, sold in supermarkets with a sachet of filling, are hugely popular for home cooking.

Busan has its own famous style, ssiat hotteok (seed hotteok), which is fried in more oil, then cut open and stuffed with a mixture of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and peanuts. The stall-lined streets around Nampo-dong and the BIFF Square in Busan are known for it. Savoury versions also exist, notably japchae hotteok, filled with glass noodles and vegetables.

ii. Why the dough is so sticky — and how the sugar melts

Hotteok dough is very soft and sticky, more like a thick batter than a bread dough. It is made with plain wheat flour and a smaller amount of glutinous rice flour, a high proportion of liquid and yeast. The wheat flour gives stretch, the glutinous rice flour gives a characteristic chewiness (jjolgit, a texture Koreans prize), and the high water content keeps the inside of the pancake soft and moist even when the outside is crisp.

Working with such a sticky dough is the main skill. Vendors and home cooks oil their hands rather than flouring them, take a portion of dough, flatten it in the palm, add filling, and gather the edges to seal it like a dumpling. Oil, unlike flour, does not toughen the dough, and it helps the outside fry crisp on the griddle.

The filling is simply brown sugar with cinnamon and chopped nuts or seeds. Inside the sealed pancake, the sugar melts in the heat and the steam from the dough, turning into a hot, runny syrup. A spoonful of flour or glutinous rice flour mixed into the sugar, as some cooks add, makes the syrup slightly thicker and less likely to leak.

Pressing is what gives hotteok its shape. The filled ball is placed seam side down on the oiled griddle and, after a moment, flattened with a hotteok nureugae, a round metal press, or a spatula. Pressing spreads the dough thinly, increases the crisp surface area and distributes the molten filling right to the edges.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 8 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 250 g plain flour
• 60 g glutinous (sweet) rice flour
• 7 g instant dried yeast
• 1 tbsp sugar (dough)
• ½ tsp salt
• 250 ml lukewarm milk or water
• 1 tbsp neutral oil (dough)
• 100 g dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 40 g chopped peanuts, walnuts or mixed seeds
• 1 tbsp plain flour (filling)
• 4 tbsp neutral oil, for frying

Glutinous rice flour (often labelled sweet rice flour, chapssalgaru or mochiko) gives the chewy texture; regular rice flour will not work in the same way. If you cannot find it, use all plain flour for a softer, breadier hotteok. Dark brown sugar gives a deep caramel flavour; Korean vendors often use a mix of white and brown sugar. Chopped peanuts are classic; sunflower and pumpkin seeds make Busan-style seed hotteok. Use lukewarm liquid, around 38 °C, so the yeast starts quickly.

iv. Method

1. Mix the plain flour, glutinous rice flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the lukewarm milk and 1 tbsp oil and stir with a spoon for 2–3 minutes into a smooth, very sticky dough.
2. Cover and leave in a warm place for about 1 hour, until doubled and bubbly. Stir to knock out the air, cover and rest for another 15 minutes.
3. Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, nuts and 1 tbsp flour for the filling.
4. Oil your hands well. Take a portion of dough about the size of a golf ball, around 70 g, and flatten it in your palm. Put a heaped tablespoon of filling in the centre, gather the edges up over it and pinch firmly to seal.
5. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Place 3 or 4 balls in the pan, seam side down, and cook for about 30 seconds, until the base starts to turn golden.
6. Turn each ball over and press it flat with a hotteok press, an oiled spatula or the bottom of an oiled cup, to about 1 cm thick and 10 cm across. Hold for a few seconds.
7. Cook for 1–2 minutes until deep golden underneath, then turn, lower the heat slightly, cover and cook for another 1–2 minutes so the filling melts completely. Add more oil for the next batch.
8. Let them cool for a minute before eating, folded in half or in a paper cup — the centre will be very hot.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Oil your hands, not the counter. The dough is meant to be sticky. Flour makes it tough and dry; oil keeps it soft and easy to handle.
• Seal the filling well. Any gap lets the molten sugar leak out and burn in the pan.
• Press after the first side sets. Pressing immediately can tear the dough before it has firmed enough to hold the filling.
• Use medium heat. Too hot, and the outside burns while the sugar inside is still grainy; too low, and the pancake absorbs oil and goes greasy.
• Add flour to the filling. A spoonful thickens the syrup slightly and reduces leaks and burns.
• Wait before biting. The melted sugar is extremely hot; give it a minute to cool.

vi. Variations

Ssiat hotteok, Busan's seed hotteok, is fried in more oil, cut open and filled with a mix of seeds and nuts. Green tea hotteok colours the dough with green tea powder; chapssal hotteok uses mostly glutinous rice flour for an even chewier texture; cheese and japchae hotteok are savoury. Some cafés serve hotteok with ice cream, a hot-and-cold dessert in the style of the croffle.

Hotteok sit beside other Korean street sweets such as fish-shaped bungeoppang and the honey-and-nut rice yaksik. Similar filled griddle breads appear across Asia, from Chinese sweet pancakes to Japanese waffle snacks; Indonesian serabi and the Malaysian kue apem are other griddle cakes.

vii. Serving & storage

Hotteok are eaten hot, straight from the pan, folded in half or held in a paper cup to catch the syrup. On the street they are a winter snack, often with a hot drink; at home they make a weekend breakfast or afternoon treat, sometimes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

They are best eaten fresh. Leftovers can be kept covered at room temperature for a day, or frozen for up to a month, separated by baking paper. Reheat in a dry frying pan over a low heat for a few minutes on each side, or in an air fryer at 170 °C (340 °F) for 3–4 minutes, until crisp and the filling has melted again. The dough can also be made the night before and left to rise slowly in the refrigerator.

ix. More from Korean

• Bungeoppang — fish-shaped pastries
• Yaksik — sweet medicinal rice
• Croffle — croissant waffle
• Bingsu — Korean shaved ice
• Choco Pie — chocolate marshmallow cake
• Serabi — Indonesian coconut pancakes