Holiday Fried Honey Cookies with Cinnamon Ginger Syrup

Holiday Fried Honey Cookies with Cinnamon Ginger Syrup
Garnished with Pine Nuts, Red & Green Sparkling Sugars
Korean Yakgwa 약과

Looking for a different type of sweet treat to add to your holiday cookie repertoire this year? Try Korean yakgwa. These fried cookies soaked in a cinnamon ginger syrup have a unique biscuit-like texture and are bursting with an unexpected flavor combination of toasted sesame oil, cinnamon, and ginger. This time of year I sprinkle them with red and green sparkling sugars along with the traditional chopped pine nuts. They are petite, super-sticky, and honey-sweet with an interesting savory element – and make a delightful addition to the Christmas dessert buffet.

Holiday Yakgwa Recipe

Cookie Recipe

2 c. all-purpose flour
2 T. toasted sesame oil
4 T. rice wine
4 T. honey
1/4 t. salt
1/8 t. white pepper

Aerate flour in the bowl of a food processor for 10 seconds. Add sesame oil and blend. Then add rice wine, honey, salt and pepper. Blend until well combined and the dough forms together into a ball, add ice water one tablespoon at a time if the dough is too dry to form a ball.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to a half inch thick, then cut out the cookies with a cookie cutter.

Heat a generous amount of canola oil over medium heat. Fry the cookies until deep golden brown, turning occasionally. Transfer to paper towels.

Cinnamon Ginger Syrup Recipe

1 c. water
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. honey
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. ground cloves

Meanwhile, combine all syrup ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Cook until the mixture becomes syrupy. Let cool slightly then pour syrup into a shallow bowl. Add the cookies. Let the warm cookies soak up the syrup.

Garnish

finely chopped toasted pine nuts
red and green sparkling sugars

Place cookies on a serving platter and sprinkle with pine nuts and red and green sugars. Serve these sweet treats with tea or coffee.

Fall Fest

featuring

Holiday Cookies

Fall Fest is a season long franchise where Food Network editors team up with bloggers to share recipes about everyone’s favorite autumn dishes. Be sure to check out the Pinterest Board with over 200,000 followers called Let’s Pull Up A Chair!

And if my Fried Cookies got you in the holiday mood for more – you might enjoy taking a peek at other festive cookie recipes from some fabulous bloggers below…