Give Canned Biscuits A Korean Twist With A Few Simple Steps

In South Korea, stuffed pancakes called hotteok are a popular wintertime street food. These delectable, sweet treats filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts are served hot and melty — straight from the pan. Unlike breakfast pancakes made from a quick batter, hotteok are made from yeasted dough, a time-consuming process of first mixing up the dough, and then waiting for it to rise. With one easy substitution, however, you can be eating these goodies in no time. The trick is to simply use canned biscuits.

Transforming canned biscuits into hotteok purportedly tastes just as good as the real thing. The refrigerated dough responds surprisingly well to being fried. It can be used to make hassle-free fry bread, and it's an excellent shortcut ingredient for easy donut holes. Just like authentic hotteok, the outside gets crispy and the inside remains chewy. In fact, the results are so similar that Korean moms have long been using this secret to whip up fast and effortless hotteok without the hassle.

To make your own, pop open a can of biscuits and slightly stretch out each piece. Add your fillings to the center, then cinch the edges together to wrap and seal everything inside. You can roll these into balls for a consistent appearance, then gently flatten them — street vendors in South Korea do this with a hotteok presser tool, but you can easily do it by hand or with the bottom of a bowl. Pan-fry the cakes in oil until they are browned and crispy.

These days, you can buy boxed hotteok mix or pre-made frozen cakes at Korean supermarkets. Making them fresh from canned biscuits though will likely cost less, and doing so lets you get creative with fillings. Aside from the sugar and cinnamon combo, you can also find them made with nuts, honey, red bean paste, Nutella, jam, matcha, Oreos, and even ice cream. A specialty in the city of Busan is ssiat hotteoks, which are split open after frying and stuffed with a mix of sugared crunchy nuts and seeds, such as sunflower and pumpkin seeds, almonds, peanuts, etc. Options aren't limited to tradition ... try filling your canned biscuits with peanut butter and jelly, dulce de leche, apple pie filling, or any of your favorite pairings. 

Hotteok is believed to have been brought to Korea from China in the late 19th century. It was originally a savory snack, with ingredients such as pork and chives or seafood. Today, street food carts and restaurants also offer them in varieties like pizza and japchae — sweet potato starch noodles with vegetables. 

At home, savory canned biscuit hotteok can include the sort of foods you'd find in Korean barbecue banchan, like grilled meats such as bulgogi and kalbi, braised tofu, and namul vegetable sides or steamed bean sprouts. For a twist on a classic, try a hotteok version of grilled cheese with the spicy addition of kimchi. Other delicious and easy-to-throw together ideas include ham and cheese, mozzarella and corn, or pesto with mozzarella.