Brown Sugar & Peanut Hotteok

📝 Ingredients

• 220 g plain flour
• 1 sachet dried baker's yeast (5.5 g)
• 1 tbsp caster sugar (15 g)
• 170 ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 pinch of salt
• 70 g brown sugar
• 40 g unsalted roasted peanuts
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 tsp sunflower oil (1 for your hands, 3 for the pan)

🍴 Utensils

• Mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Clean tea towel
• Bowl
• Non-stick frying pan with lid
• Flat spatula

📖 Steps

1. Warm the milk in the microwave for 30 seconds: it should feel just lukewarm to the touch, never hot, or the yeast will die. Stir in the yeast and sugar, then leave to stand for 5 minutes, until a light foam forms on the surface.
2. In the mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt. Pour in the yeasted milk and stir with a wooden spoon for 2 to 3 minutes, until you have a smooth, very sticky, elastic dough. This is normal: whatever you do, don't add flour — the dough must stay soft.
3. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for 1 hour in a warm, draught-free place, until the dough has doubled in size and is full of bubbles.
4. While it rises, roughly chop the peanuts with a knife. In a bowl, mix them with the brown sugar and cinnamon: this is the filling, which will melt into a syrup as it cooks.
5. Knock back the dough by folding it over with the spoon. Oil your hands with 1 tsp of oil and divide the dough into 8 balls (about 50 g each). Flatten a ball in your palm, place 1 heaped tbsp of filling in the centre, then bring the edges up and pinch firmly to seal.
6. Heat the frying pan over a medium heat with 1 tsp of oil. Add 3 balls, seam side down, and cook for 1 minute, until golden underneath. Flip, then immediately press each ball down with the spatula dipped in the oil from the pan, to about 1 cm thick.
7. Cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, flip one last time, then lower the heat and cover for 2 minutes: the brown sugar melts inside and the dough cooks through. Repeat with the remaining balls, adding 1 tsp of oil for each batch.
8. Let the hotteok cool for 2 to 3 minutes before biting into them: the brown sugar syrup inside is scalding hot. Serve 2 hotteok per person, warm, folded in a paper napkin as on the streets of Seoul.