During the pandemic, I really started getting back in touch with my Korean roots. With the holidays coming up, I wanted to try my hand at making bungeoppang (fish-shaped bread), a traditional dessert staple. Working in a chemistry lab, I was always curious about trying my hand at cooking and baking. But being a graduate student in NYC on a graduate student’s salary isn’t the most conducive way to gain access to a proper kitchen of my own. Now that I’m a postdoc, I am making infinite money (/s) and have my own kitchen! I wanted to challenge myself a bit, so I decided to make the dough and custard from scratch. For filling choices, I was debating Nutella, red bean, and Korean choux (custard) cream. In the end, I settled on red bean paste (Amazon) and the custard cream (homemade).
Bungeoppang dough recipe source: https://www.justonecookbook.com/taiyaki/
Korean choux cream recipe source: https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/cream-ppang
Recipes
Bungeoppang Dough
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup whole milk
1 tbsp neutral or cooking oil
* Makes 8 pieces total
Korean Custard Cream
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk
Pinch of kosher salt
4 egg yolks, beaten and strained
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
* I doubled the amounts just in case