Honey cookies – Yakgwa

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 1 cup flour
• 3 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp rice wine
• 2 tbsp honey, clear
• some salt and pepper
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 2 tbsp honey
• ½ tbsp cinnamon powder
• 2 tbsp pine nuts for garnishing
• 4 cups of oil for frying

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Rest time approx. 2 hours; Total time approx. 2 hours 45 minutes

korean fried honey cake / cookie

Sift flour, salt, and pepper. Mix the sifted mixture with sesame oil and stir well until lump-free. In a bowl, combine rice wine and honey, then knead into the flour mixture. It should resemble cookie dough. Form a round ball from one tablespoon of dough at a time and flatten it between your hands to form a disc. You can press patterns into the dough with a fork, but these must be quite deep so that they do not disappear during further processing. Make a small hole in the center for the pine nut. In a saucepan, mix the ingredients for the syrup and heat until everything has melted. Simmer until a syrup forms, then keep at a low heat. Heat the oil in a saucepan to approximately 140°C. Do not burn! Add the discs to the oil and fry until they are nicely browned and still soft on the inside. Remove from the oil, drain well, and dip directly into the warm syrup for 30 seconds. Then remove them and place each one in a white muffin cup, for example. While the syrup is still liquid, place the pine nut in the small hole you made for it. Let it cool and give it to your loved ones or enjoy it yourself. Tips: Don’t knead the dough for too long, otherwise it will become too crumbly and the little cookies will fall apart during frying. If you have a traditional Korean cookie mold, you can use it to make the pattern in the dough. Yakwa is traditionally made for Pepero Day. It’s on November 11th and is an unofficial holiday in South Korea. It’s comparable to our Valentine’s Day.