Korean Mini Walnut Muffins made locally and hand wrapped

On a trip to the Korean H-Mart in Niles with my esteemed colleague Cathy 2, I recently discovered a new bakery that has been in business for about three months. They make these wonderful Korean Mini Walnut Muffins on their authentic machine which they pour the batter in, fill them with red bean past and hand drop a piece of walnut in the center. At the end of the production line (a few feet) they are lovely hand rolled in white paper by a young woman seated comfortably in a chair. This traditional Korean street food is worth a trip to the H-Mart and its exterrior shopping court where the muffin shop in sandwiched between stalls filled with cosmetics and electronic devices.

Although the H-Mart sells the walnut muffins prepacked in their pastry section, I recommend that you ask for one still warm from the production line. They manager was quite proud of the fact that they imported the proper machine from their homeland and it is a wonderful treat. Very reminescent to the warm cakes they sell at Mount Fuji that has to be eaten on the spot, warm and at the height of perfect, or those sold in front of temples. Chowhound has a recipe and calls them Hodo Kwaja.

Here is the You Tube site's video link of the process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVK51bdhDG8
The making of Korean walnut cakes using a a very odd contraption at Man Mi Bakery in Queens, NYC.

To see for yourself and to devour one hot off the line visit:
Migahodo
Korean Mini Walnut Muffin
801 Civic Center Dr. #162
Niles IL 607014
847-749-5390

Never having traveled to Korean, I found a well written description that sums up my amazement as a novice discovering a new dish at http://torontoist.com/2005/10/baked_goods_rev_1.php, I was also taken aback at how small the shop was, and their tiny production line that made just one item - I do not know what time they make the cakes and might have stumbled on it accidently. When I asked if I could get closer to the machine for a better look they honored my request. Watching it is a delight - devouring one straight off the line even better.

I once saw an American cast iron pancake maker circa 1860s in an East coast museum that had thirteen individual well-like-circular-molds that had to be flipped indivudually on their other side and finished on the larger oval single grill, while you started the first side of the second batch. An extremely hot on the knuckles chore considering this was a coal or wood burning cast iron range. At "The Bakery" Restaurant I used a patented 1869 Philadelphia cast iron 3-well-but connected single flipper version for pancakes on Friday mornings for the staff (purchased for $5 at the Kane County flea market) using the pancake recipe from the Stillwater Inn located in Stillwater MN. To watch the Korean walnut muffin machine in action has that zany inventor "watchamacallit" marvel aspect. Stopped me dead in my tracks. It was $3 for 9, but they sell in larger quanties.

From: http://torontoist.com/2005/10/baked_goods_rev_1.php
Baked Goods Review: Walnut Cake If you're anything like us, you might occasionally find yourself strolling in Little Korea craving the perfect snack. Something sweet, but not too sweet. Bite-sized, but satisfying. Shareable, but less than $2. And with a certain Willy Wonka whimsy. Fortunately, you're in the right neighborhood. Bloor Street west of Bathurst is peppered with charming little Korean bakeries churning out just such a treat - walnut cakes. In addition to being filled with a tasty walnut and red bean paste, the pastry is charmingly shaped like a walnut about the size of a TimBit.

If you are a very lucky fish, you will arrive to see the tiny walnut cakes being baked in the gigantic contraption worthy of Willy Wonka's factory (seriously, it looks like it should be operated by Oompa Loompas). At $1.25 for a half dozen, and with all that nostalgia coursing through the air, walnut cakes are an ideal snack for a date when you're hurting for coin. Feed them to one another while they're still warm as you stroll through the shade of Christie Pits. It's always worked for us.

Silver Spoon

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star. - Brillat-Savarin

Hi,

For those following the home game, Silver Spoon is a friend from Culinary Historians and Greater Midwest Foodways. She has encyclopedic knowledge of culinary history with culinary skills to match.

Those walnut muffins still warm from this process were spectacular. I was busy collecting the car when you found this walnut muffin machine. Was this situated in that mall area adjacent to the produce department?

Regards,

Cathy 2,

"Was this situated in that mall area adjacent to the produce department? " No, is the tour guide questioning the tourist ? You remind me of heroine Nina Simonds. I have no idea where I was, but I was happily on a culinary sojourn with you - if I had not picked up a business card I would still be clueless.

If you recall, you led me into an entrance of H-Mart that had the little cookware section tucked in the corner, adjacent to the Bini Pastry department on the far right. I was exploring the store on the grid system -the exterrior walls, first the one on the right, then the back wall when I lost you in the catacombs after the fish market, when I stopped to look nostalgically at the black boned chickens, followed by the meat section which dead ended on the other wall at the man making the Honey Pancakes on a grill [which turned out to also include ground peanuts]. On that wall to the left of him were the check out counters. Having discovered that we were separated I tried to work my way back to the entrance where we came in.

I kept dead ending in aisles where people were cooking, past the rice, the tea etc. I could not find my way out of the maze-so I doubled back to stick to the outside walls and back to the pancake chef, went out the check out lines, into the corridor (the exterrior wall had shops).

When we left the store you went out the other exit door to the car. I veered to the left following the last exterrior wall along the inner hallway to retrieve our friends, this too was lined with shops on the left and on the right. As you walk down this corridor the Korean Mini Walnut Shop is on the left inside wall 3-4 shops down.

My suggestion is GPS or compass, or the standard crime scene grid. Either door you enter from the parking lot do not enter H-Mart but go rather thru the retail hall located at the front of the building. The tiny shop will be on the inside wall.

The pastry is displayed in a glass show case (like a jewerly store) the machine will be set back in the back left corner. I stopped because a woman was sitting in a chair in front of an odd machine clearly dropping walnuts in - from first glance it was larger than a mini doughnut machine but an engineering marvel none the less A man in the back was stirring batter in a large bowl, the lady at the front counter was standing and packing white paper balls into packages. Another woman was sitting and hand wrapping small balls in white paper made do a double take. All this hoopla for such small individually wrapped goodies. One store - one product it had to be a specialty item.

No, it was not a treasured Chinese plum like those I bought on Argle Street in grammar school decades before the arrival of the new Chinatown from a classmates family shop. Knowing my fetish for all things red bean paste, and having studied cooking for three summers on Nina Simonds trips to Chinese cooking schools, and my World Association of Cooking Societies trip to the convention in Japan, and to the Tsuji Culinary Institute Japanese cooking in Osaka (since the 1960s the best cooking school on the planet) at first glance I thought I might be seeing something simular to the famous Mt. Fuji delicacies - or on the line of the colorful flavored red bean pastry balls I have a weakness for, or even a Chinese sesame bean ball. Could I be in Sienna, Italy home of the RICCIARELLI (Tuscan Almond Cookies)? Or could this shop produce a gem along the lines of Florence Italy's famed bomboli shop where the doughnuts are made on the second floor, promptly like clockwork at a given hour slide down a plexiglass shoot to the first floor and rolled in sugar seconds before they are served hot to guests in a line that runs out the door and down the block - back off Krispy Creme.

But the shape was more like the black walnuts we used to make black walnut liquor from. The fact that it was a cake with red been paste and a piece of almond in the center I hit the culinary trifecta - Hungarians would go nuts over them. I was even happier to discover a video on You Tube, for the machine in operation at a Queens bakery. Unlike the Chinese cook featured on You Tube from the window in the Washington restaurant, who demonstrates the peasant method instead of the royal palace kitchen brigade method for making noodles in the manner I was instructed that is to be presented as a rare art before the emperor and empresses eyes in the dining room tableside? These little cakes represent morsals from the gods when warm.

Your field trip produced a lasting memory and I cannot wait to hitch a ride the next time you venture back to H-Mart. Bini had a special pastry they only make in the summer with blueberries in the batter and filled with fresh raspberries that looked tempting.

Other You Tube videos on the Korean Walnut Cake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMoWl7zUL4 Toronto Shop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yYDoXbt ... re=related Street vendor version smaller scale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3AHPEZf ... re=related larger production


Silver Spoon

When we left the store you went out the other exit door to the car. I veered to the left following the last exterrior wall along the inner hallway to retrieve our friends, this too was lined with shops on the left and on the right. As you walk down this corridor the Korean Mini Walnut Shop is on the left inside wall 3-4 shops down.

Ok, now I know where it is.

Thank you!

Regards,

Hi,

I bought nine of those walnut cake confections for $2.99:

Wrapped in silky paper:


Unwrapped:


Exposed:


When I ate these without looking, I thought I was biting into a custard. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a honey-flavored bean paste. What is not visible is the walnut meat embedded in the bean paste.

These walnut cakes do not hold well packed from the shop. If you need to hold them for any length of time, I suggest putting them into an air-tight container to retain the moistness.

I think these could be fun treats on Christmas day.

Regards,

I was just telling Gwiv about this place. It's my current H-Mart obsession. I'm working on a photo essay of the very cool machine that makes these confections.

stevez wrote:I was just telling Gwiv about this place. It's my current H-Mart obsession. I'm working on a photo essay of the very cool machine that makes these confections.

The owner let you take pictures? He wouldn't allow me. He has a personality that seems to run hot and cold. I look forward to your pictures.

Regards,