Korean baked goods facts for kids
| Place of origin | South Korea |
|---|---|
| Region or state | East Asia |
| Associated national cuisine | South Korea |
Korean baked goods (한국 생과자, hanguk saenggwacha, or 한국 빵, hanguk ppang) are tasty treats from Korea. They include different kinds of bread, buns, pastries, cakes, and snacks. For a long time, bread was not a main food in Korea. People mostly ate traditional steamed breads made from rice and wheat flour.
Korean bread became popular in the late 1980s. This happened when bakeries like Paris Baguette started opening. These bakeries wanted to mix French baking styles with Korean flavors. This created a new kind of bread that tasted good to Koreans. Now, these mixed-style breads are popular all over Asia. Many Asian bakery chains are even opening stores in other countries.
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What Makes Korean Bread Special?
Korean buns are usually soft, springy, and sweet. They are quite different from most European breads. European breads often have a hard crust and a dry, salty inside. Traditional Western bread is made with flour, salt, and water, and has no fat.
Korean bread, however, uses a lot of fat and sugar. This is what makes it so soft and gives it a special texture. Many Korean baked goods are also drizzled with sweet condensed milk.
You will often find Korean breads filled with something. The most common filling is sweet red bean paste. Many items look like they came from a French bakery. But they have Korean flavors mixed with Western baking methods.
Mi Young Lee, who works for the bakery chain Tous Les Jours, says Korean bakery items look French but taste Asian. She explains that this mix creates many sweet and savory pastries. These treats appeal to people from both Eastern and Western cultures.
Big bakery chains like Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours are always creating new flavors. They use traditional Korean ingredients like red bean, green matcha, and sesame in their breads.
Popular Korean Bread Varieties
A typical Korean bakery has over 300 different items! Many of them are sweet, like a brioche. You won't often find the dense, multigrain loaves that are common in European bakeries.
Some of the most popular items are “gyeran-ppang” (egg bread) and “soboro” buns. Egg bread is a sweet and savory muffin shaped like an oval. It has a whole egg baked right on top!
"Bungeoppang" are fish-shaped waffles. They are filled with sweet red bean paste. A similar treat is ‘gukhwappang’. These are made the same way but are shaped like chrysanthemum-flowers. You can find both bungeo-ppang and gyeran-ppang sold at street food markets in South Korea.
Soboro, or Korean streusel bread, has a hard, crusty topping that looks like a cookie. Soboro can also be filled with sweet potato, red bean, or strawberry jam.
There are many breads filled with cream cheese. Some examples are mocha cream cheese bread, walnut cream cheese bread, and red bean cream cheese bread. You can also find breads filled with custard, like condensed milk bread or melon cream bread.
Some breads use traditional Korean dessert ingredients. These include walnut red bean bread, glutinous rice bread, pumpkin bread, or chestnut bread.
Choco pies are a very famous Korean snack. They are like a cookie filled with chocolate and marshmallow. Many traditional bakeries sell handmade choco pies. You can also buy packaged ones at grocery stores.
Sora-ppang (소라 빵; "sora bread") is shaped like a shell and has a mocha filling.
Hwangnam bread (황남빵), also called Gyeongju bread (경주빵), is a traditional Korean bun. It is filled with red bean paste.
Mochi bread (모찌 빵) is a sweet bread inspired by Japan. It comes with different fillings like cheese, chocolate, and matcha.
Traditional Bread Gallery
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Gyeongju Bread
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Chalbori-ppang (찰보리빵) Glutinous Barley Bread
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Kkulppang (꿀빵) Honey Bread
Modern Bread Gallery
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Twisted doughnut (kkwabaegi)
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Red Bean Bun
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Hot Dog Buns
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Choco Pie
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Gyeranppang (계란빵; "egg bread")
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Korean Cafe Culture
Cafe culture really took off in South Korea in the 1980s. Today, there are over 20,000 cafes in South Korea. Over 1,000 of these are Starbucks! People often spend hours in cafes working, meeting friends, or studying. Most cafes offer free Wi-Fi and places to charge devices. This makes them very popular with young people. This trend shows how Koreans have embraced the Western-style coffee shop experience.
Traditional Korean breakfast used to be rice, kimchi, and soup. But with Western influences, toast and cereals are now more common. One popular cafe item is "honey butter toast." This is a large, fluffy white bread covered in butter, honey, and caramel. It's often topped with whipped cream, syrup, nuts, and sometimes fruit. Injeolmi toast is baked white bread stuffed with glutinous rice. It might be topped with garlic cheese, citron, or honey and ice cream. These are popular breakfast items in South Korean cafes.
The History of Bread in Korea
Globalization has changed what Koreans eat. Foods like kimchi and bap ("rice") are sometimes replaced with bread and meat. For a long time, bread was not a main food in Korea, unlike in Western countries. Some steamed breads, made from wheat and rice flour, came to Korea from Central Asia in the 13th century. In most East Asian countries, rice is still the main food. Bread is often eaten for breakfast, as a snack, or sometimes as a dessert.
Modern Korean food culture grew in the 1980s and 1990s. South Korea started opening its markets to other countries. This meant more grain-based products, like bread, entered the Korean diet. This greatly changed what Koreans ate. For example, people eat much less rice now. This shows that other foods, like instant meals, processed meats, and bread, are becoming more popular. Bread also shows a social change. More young people choose bread because it is easy and affordable.
Koreans are also living busier lives and caring more about health. This has led to more people eating staple breads and rolls. Foods that are quick and easy to eat, like energy bars, are growing in popularity. Working mothers often make toast for breakfast because it is faster than a traditional Korean breakfast.
The market for bread and bakery products is still growing. In 2016, the baking industry in Korea made 2.1 trillion won. This was a big increase from four years before. Among baked goods, red bean pastries were produced the most. Cakes, sliced loaf bread, and doughnuts also sold well. The total sales for the industry grew by almost 50% between 2012 and 2016. This shows how popular baked goods have become in South Korea.
Overall, South Korea has seen many new dessert cafes and bakeries open. Baked goods, fancy breads, cakes, and pastries are becoming more and more popular as extra food items.
Big Bakery Chains in Korea
Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours are the biggest bakery chains in Asia. Paris Baguette opened its first store in South Korea in 1988. By 2018, it had over 3,316 stores in South Korea. It also has stores in China, Vietnam, Singapore, and France. Paris Baguette is still the largest chain in South Korea. It controls 80% of the bakery market. Companies under the same group, like Samlip General Food, make most of the packaged baked goods in South Korea. Paris Baguette is known for its wide range of products and its growing success. It is also very well-known and popular.
Tous Les Jours was started in 1996. It has over 1,300 locations in Asia and the USA. Tous Les Jours makes up about one-fifth of the bakery market.
Because baked goods are so popular in Korea, some foreign bakeries have also opened stores there. French chains like Brioche Doree and Gontran Cherrier, and New York's Magnolia Bakery, are now in Korea.
Brioche Doree opened in South Korea in 2013. They ship ingredients directly from France. Even though their products are more expensive, people still go there for the authentic taste.
The rest of the bakery market is made up of smaller, local bakeries. These are known as "동네빵집; dongneh ppangchib; 'town bakeries'".
Korean-style bakeries can be found all over the world. Some large global chains include Grupo Bimbo, BreadTalk Group, and Yamazaki Baking. China is quickly becoming a huge market for baked goods. Businesses there try to make breads that look Western but are sweet and buttery with cream fillings. Some bakeries, like Brioche Doree, also make breads with less oil and sugar for health-conscious customers. They still keep the cream and cheese fillings that people love.
