I just LOVE Korean street food recipes. When I watch videos of the vendors making their dishes, I’m transported right there with all of the sounds and scents, and it’s always ME who gets to taste their hot deliciousness.
So, in Korean, this bread is known as gyeran-ppang — little, fluffy oval pucks of bread topped with egg. Variations include American cheese and bacon — or even a whole hard boiled egg inside.
Now the recipe I’m going to be using for the batter has been adapted from the maven of Korean cooking — Maangchi.
And the secret to her batter, which she developed after going to Korea to taste gyeran-ppang for the first time herself, is vanilla. So it’s very similar to a pancake batter in that it will be a sweet batter.
The breads are baked in special cylindrical-shaped ovens which use a combination of gas and steam. When they come out — golden brown, diminutive, delectable — the breads have a beautiful, domed top.
Since I don’t have a special oven dedicated to making gyeran-ppang, I simply used a countertop oven with a convection setting at 375℉.
Korean Street Food Egg Bread – Gyeran-Ppang
Equipment
- mini loaf pans or a muffin pan
- oven
Ingredients
Batter
- 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp. melted butter
- 3 tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- a pinch Kosher salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 C. whole milk
Additions
- 3 eggs
- 3 slice American cheese (optional)
- 1 slice bacon cut into thirds (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400˚F/200˚C or 375˚F for a convection oven.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, melted butter, sugar, vanilla, salt, egg and milk until well combined.
- Slightly oil the baking pans with a pastry brush and vegetable oil.
- Divide the batter between the three pans.
- Crack an egg into each pan.
- Gently stir the eggs to slightly scramble them, but try not to disturb the batter below.
- Optional – Sprinkle the beaten egg with sugar.
- Top the egg with one slice of bacon or a slice of American cheese folded in half.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes (longer if you like your eggs well cooked) until golden brown and puffed.
- Remove the bread from the pan and serve warm.
Nutrition
So How Do They Taste?
Since I made three different versions, I’ll go through them one by one.
Original — just egg.
First of all, to recreate that Korean street food feeling, I recommend eating these right out of the oven so that they are piping hot.
The consistency of the egg in the original is unique — it’s kind of a cross between a scrambled and hard-boiled egg.
The bread itself is similar to a muffin both in form and sweetness. The vanilla definitely stands out, creating a delightful combination of sweet and savory. But, in terms of the crumb, or quality of the bread, it is vaguely reminiscent of a steamed bao, being very moist with a bit of a bounce to it.
Bacon
My favorite. The addition of the smoked porkiness makes this one more savory to me, and it tells me that I’m eating breakfast.
I guess I’m just a sucker for the combination of sweet, pancakey-vanilla flavors with egg and bacon.
Cheese
The cheese version tastes just like macaroni and cheese to me, the American cheese flavor being quite strong. Having said that, it does go well with the egg.
Additionally, my cheese bread had slightly more batter than the other two which led to the egg in this one being a little undercooked compared to the first one.
Final Thoughts?
You might want to play around a little with batter amounts and cooking time depending on how cooked you like your egg.
You might even try these with ketchup. I didn’t have any on hand, but thought afterwards that it might make a good match.
Happy experimenting, lovelies!
Love these. I freeze them and will reheat in microwave for 60 sec. They are fabulous and so easy
That’s great to know. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Written recipe does not instruct when, where how to add melted butter.
I love you videos! This is the first recipe I’m trying!
Whoops! Fixed it – thanks.
I love these. Today I made them with crumbled turkey sausage, fresh basil and a small teaspoon of fresh onion. So good.
I was so excited to try these out that I forgot the baking powder…….
So uh, reminder to double check the recipe friends.
Other than my blunder, the recipe turned out beautifully!
Whoops!:) I’m glad you still were able to enjoy it.
Nice! Way to make the recipe your own.
I made these yesterday with King Arthur gluten-free measure for measure flour and forgot to add the butter. They were still delicious! My molds were smaller so I put a few in the fridge. They are good microwaved or cold. Note to self, do not fill the mold too high next time because these grow lol
What size are the mini loaf pans? Should be? I saw one video that said at least 1.5” deep.
I made these this morning and they are so good!! The cheese and the sugar came out perfectly and were so delicious but the one with bacon was much less cooked than the others. I put it back in the oven for a while longer and they eventually cooked up. Did anyone have the same problem? Such a great recipe, will most definitely be making again! 🙂