Simple Hotteok Recipe (Korean Sweet Pancake)

Hotteok is Korean sweet pancake stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts. It’s a popular winter snack and well known Korean street food. Make the best light and chewy hotteok with this simple recipe and step-by-step instruction.

Anyone who visits Korea should taste hotteok (호떡, sometimes called hoddeok) from a street food vendor. If not, you are missing out one of the best Korean snacks.

Check out my Korean corn dog and Twisted donut (Kkwabaegi) recipes for another popular street treats.

You can buy pre-made hotteok mix or frozen hotteok in a Korean market, but this delicious Korean sweet pancake is so easy to make from scratch with a few basic ingredients.

The best part is that you don’t even need to knead the dough. Just mix with a spoon and let it rise.

Hotteok is a nostalgic sweet treat for Korean people young and old. And it seems like the world is falling for it, too.

Why not? It’s chewy, hot, sweet, and delicious!

Recipe tips for making better hotteok

1. Add sweet rice flour to the dough

Sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour) enhances the texture of hotteok and makes the dough softer and chewier. A drawback of many hotteok recipes that are made with wheat flour alone is that the dough hardens quickly once cooled. Sweet rice flour will extend the chewy soft texture longer.

2. A hint of Baking Powder

Adding a tiny amount of baking powder to the yeast dough helps the overall texture light and fluffy.

3. No need to knead the dough

You don’t need to knead the dough with this recipe. Just mix the dough ingredients with a spoon for 1 minute and let it rise until doubled in volume. You can’t get any simpler than that.

What is hotteok press

A hotteok press is a tool with a flat, round stainless steel bottom with a wooden handle on top. It is used to press the hotteok dough or dalgona candy to flatten it into a circle shape. You can purchase it inexpensively through most Korean markets or online. Or, use any round bowl with smooth flat bottom to achieve the same result.

Variety of Korean sweet pancake filling

Typically, Korean sweet rice pancake is stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nut mixture but savory filling is also well considered. Try hotteok with different types of fillings to suit your taste.

Some examples are:

• sweetened fruit filling or jam
• apple pie filling
• various seeds and nuts
• savory filling – meat and vegetables (try with leftover japchae)
• cheese filling – ay meltable cheese

Classic hotteok Ingredients

This recipe will show you how to make the classic version–brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped peanut.

For the dough:

• all-purpose flour
• sweet rice flour – glutinous rice flour
• instant yeast – if using the active yeast, proof it in the liquid before adding to the mixture.
• baking powder – helps soften the texture of the dough.
• sugar
• salt
• milk – lukewarm
• oil

For the filling:

• brown sugar – I prefer light brown sugar
• cinnamon
• peanuts – finely chopped

How to make hotteok

Make the dough

Mix flours, yeast, baking powder, sugar, and salt with a whisk in a large mixing bowl.

Heat milk to lukewarm and add oil. Pour the milk/oil mixture into the flour mixture and mix to combine with a spoon for 1-2 minutes. The dough should be sticky.

Cover the dough mixture with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled in volume, about 1-2 hours. You should see the spider web-like gluten development when the dough is pulled.

Cinnamon brown sugar filling

Meanwhile, make the hotteok filling by mixing brown sugar, cinnamon and peanuts in small bowl.

Stuff dough with filling

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions. Grease your hands with a little bit of oil. Take one portion of dough and flatten it in your hand in a cupping shape. Put 1 1/2 tablespoonful of brown sugar filling on the center of the dough.

Pull the edges of the dough together, pulling toward the center, and pinch together to seal. Make sure you seal it completely by pinching well.

Repeat the other dough portions in the same manner and place them on a greased platter.

Fry in oil

Heat a generous amount of oil in a large griddle or skillet over med-low heat. Place the filled hotteok doughs, seam side down and maintaining space from each other, in the griddle and let it cook for 30-60 seconds.

Flip to the other side and press down on the dough with a hotteok press until it becomes about 1/2-inch thick. Do not press it too thin; you don’t want to tear the dough and explode the filling inside.

Cook until golden brown on both sides, about 1-2 minutes per side. Lower the heat if it browns too quickly.

Serving idea

When hotteok is just fried, it will be really hot. In Korea, typically a small paper cup is used as a holding tool for a hot hotteok.

Gently bend the hot pancake in half and shove it in the cup. That way, you can protect your finger from hot fried dough and catch any syrup dripping as you eat. Smart!

How to reheat hotteok

It’s best to enjoy when they are freshly fried. But the best way to reheat leftover hotteok is by using a toaster to make them crispy. Or warm them up in a 350˚F oven until heated through, about 10 minutes.

To freeze leftover, put them in a freezer-safe zip bag and freeze up to 3 months.

Watch Hotteok recipe video

More Korean Sweet Snacks

Here are a few Korean snacks that has a sweeter side.

• Fluffy Korean Twisted Donut (Kkwabaegi)
• Pan Roasted Korean Sweet Potato
• Korean Sweet Rice Dessert (Yakshik) – Instant Pot
• Korean Sweet Rice Cake Bars (LA Chapssalteok)
• Homemade Patbingsu (Korean Shaved Milky Ice)

This recipe was originally posted in November, 2011. I’ve updated the recipe with a minor change, new photos, and more information.