Korean Egg BreadGyeranppang

Gyeranppang carts show up in Korean markets and train station plazas as the weather turns cold. They're easy to spot: a small griddle with fish-shaped or rectangular molds, a paper cup of batter, and a carton of eggs sitting next to the vendor. You pay about a dollar, wait a minute, and get something warm enough to hold with both hands while you walk.

I hadn't thought about gyeranppang for years until a friend named Tomás — a software developer from Colombia who had moved to Seoul for work — texted me a photo of one from the Gwangjang Market entrance. He said it was the best thing he'd eaten that week, then asked me how to make it at home because the cart wasn't there every day.

He had a standard oven and a muffin tin. That's all you need. The batter is a simple sweet quickbread mix — flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, butter. The muffin cup fills about two-thirds, then you crack a whole egg right on top and bake. The bread rises up around the egg, the white sets, the yolk stays a little soft. The sweet-salty contrast is the whole point.

I walked Tomás through it over a video call. The thing he almost got wrong was filling the cups too full — if the batter is at the three-quarters mark, the egg sits too high and slides off when you add it. Two-thirds is the right level, just enough room for the egg to nestle in and bake surrounded by rising bread.

He sent me a photo of the finished batch. The eggs were perfectly set with the yolk barely runny. He'd added green onion on top, which is optional but good. He said his Korean friends were impressed, which felt like a high bar cleared.

These are best eaten warm, within ten minutes of the oven. They don't wait well — but they don't last long anyway.