Spring edible flowers like nasturtiums and pear flowers are used to make these simple, easy, beautiful rice pancakes in my Korean family to celebrate spring. Once these flower pancakes called Hwajeon are made, it can be dipped in honey or rice syrup for a sweeter flavor.
Flower Rice Pancake
- Yield: 3
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cooking Time: 15 min
Ingredients
- 1 C /100g sweet rice flour (mochiko rice flour)
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- 5~6 T hot water
- 2 T vegetable oil for frying
- 1 bunch of edible flowers
Preparation
- Mix rice flour and salt.
- Boil water. Let it cool for 10-20 seconds or so. Add this almost boiling hot water to flour mixture, 1 T at a time. Mix it well and form into a ball. *** BE CAREFUL not to burn your hands. Do not touch the wet flour directly but scoop the dry flour onto the wet area and gently toss and mix with your hands.
- When you have added 5 T of water, you should have a dough.
- Knead a few times to make sure dough is evenly mixed.
- Divide dough and form 1 inch balls.
- Press each ball and shape into flat pancake shape – the size of a dollar pancake or about 2 to 2.5 inch wide.
- Press a flower or leaf onto each pancake. If your flower is too big, you can also take a few petals and use that instead.
- Heat oil in pan and fry each flower pancake on med-high heat until the bottom side is lightly browned. Do not turn over (to keep the color of flowers) but shower the flower side with hot oil to cook thoroughly.
- Optionally, brush each flower pancake with honey or sugar syrup. Or serve with honey for dipping.
Recipe Tags
This recipe produces a somewhat drier and crispier version of Hwajeon. If you like softer texture, you can add a bit more water.
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