Koreans love love love spicy, sweet, and salty all at once. They even have a term “단짠“ meaning sweet-salty. I generally like keeping my sweet foods and salty foods separate – eating a savory dinner and following up with a nice dessert. But here, people do things differently. The meal itself has a lot of sugar and spice to it. They add sugar to garlic bread, sandwiches, meat, everything. It sounds gross but it is really freaking addicting. You’ll see what I mean when you give it a try.
This leads me to the point of bagels. Bagels have been trending massively in Korea. So I created this bagel that Koreans would love – the spicy cheesy sweet bagel. It is stuffed with pepper jack cheese and topped with cheddar cheese and sweet and spicy picked jalapeños. Even if you aren’t Korean, you will love these guaranteed. They are like the classic jalapeño and cheese bagel on steroids.
- Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 10 grams sugar
- 10 grams honey
- 1 Tablespoon neutral oil
- 250 ml water
- 440 grams bread flour
- 1½ tsp salt
- 2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- jar of sweet and spicy pickled jalapeños (I like the ones from Trader Joe’s)
- 2 quarts of water
- 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon baking soda
- Recipe:
- mix together the yeast, sugar, honey, and 200 ml of water in a mixing bowl
- let it sit until it foams
- add the flour and salt and knead with the dough hook for about 8 minutes
- add more water as needed, but the dough should be dry and not sticky
- put the dough in a greased bowl and cover
- let it sit until it doubles in size
- punch it down and divide into eight 100-gram pieces
- shape them into balls
- roll out or stretch each one out
- press in about ¼ cup of pepper jack cheese lengthwise
- roll the dough down and squeeze it along the way to make sure there are no air bubbles
- put the tail end into the other side and pinch the dough around it tight
- heat the water, sugar, and baking soda to a simmer
- drop each bagel in and blanch it for about 30 seconds on each side
- take it out and place on a pan lined with a silicon pad
- place jalapeño slices all arounf the top of the bagel and sprinkle cheddar cheese immediately
- bake in a preheated oven at 220°C for about 20 minutes until golden brown and cheese is crispy
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