Gochujang Cookies
Adapted from a recipe by Eric Kim
Preparation time: 20 minutes plus 2 hours refrigeration time
Cooking time: 12 minutes per tray
- 1 tablespoon/15g/0.5oz soft butter*
- 2 tablespoons/30g/2ozs brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon gochujang paste
- 200g/7ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 100g/3.5ozs soft butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups/185g/6ozs plain all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
*The butter should be soft enough so that you can pass a butter knife through it without having to put much pressure on the knife.
Step 1 - In a small bowl mix together the tablespoon of butter, brown sugar and gochujang using a spatula until it forms a uniform textured paste. Cover and set aside.
Step 2 - In a larger bowl add the sugar, butter, vanilla, salt and cinnamon and whisk together for 1 minute. Then add the egg and whisk this in until combined. In a jug or bowl whisk the flour and bicarb together. Then switching to a spatula, add this into the butter mixture to form a dough.
Step 3 - Take the gochujang butter mixture and place it in 4 dollops on four corners the dough (reserve 2 teaspoons of the gochujang butter mixture for later) and stir it in until you get a ribbon effect. It's important to not overstir, 3 or 4 folds is enough to get streaks and distribute it. Refrigerate the dough uncovered for 2 hours.
Step 4 - Preheat the oven to 160C/320F fan forced and line 3 baking trays with parchment. Scoop out a small amount of dough (around a walnut size amount or 15g/0.5oz). Place four dough balls per tray as they spread quite a lot. If you don't get nice gochujang streaks on top just spread a streak of the reserved gochujang sauce on top with a knife or spatula. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on the tray for 10 minutes to firm up and then enjoy!
Personal Note
Speaking of interesting I recently received a letter in the mail. I opened it up and it told me that I had received a $410 fine for not wearing my seatbelt while driving. This was ridiculous to me because I always wear my seat belt so I clicked on the link to view the pictures. The first pic was very grainy, the second even grainier but then the third picture was clear as day. There I was driving without a seatbelt!
My head spun, there was literally no way I would drive without fastening my seatbelt. I squinted further and it was definitely me in the picture. My mind started to think, was the seatbelt the same colour as my dress and it just blended in? I then started to explore alternate reality theories .
"Honey come look at this!" I called to Mr NQN. He had a look and peered closer to the computer. "Hmmm," he said looking very puzzled. After thinking it over he asked, "Did you have eczema that day?" he said.
It all came tumbling back to me. I was on my way to an event with a friend and the seatbelt was rubbing against a patch of eczema on my chest. I know that you're supposed to wear your seatbelt across your chest here but I put the seatbelt under my arm just for a bit and that is just when the camera caught it! I couldn't believe that it caught me during the 5 minutes in which I moved the seatbelt at the traffic light but hey that's life isn't it? So let me console myself with these cookies as I'll be $410 poorer for it!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you think you'd like the sound of these gochujang cookies? Do you get a lot of driving fines?