Sweet treats hold a special place on Korean menus: Andrew Coppolino

Virtually every country on the planet enjoys sweets of some shape or form. The Argentines have alfajores, the Sicilians, cannoli; while the Levant has knafeh, the Pakistanis have gulab jamun and east Africa has kashata.   

At Korean restaurants and cafés in Waterloo Region, there is a host of bubble teas served as a sweet balance to the galbi, bulgogi and the jeyuk bokkeum spicy pork that you might eat at Korean barbecue restaurants.

But sweets have a special place on the Korean menu. So much so, in fact, that about a year ago Young Yun opened The Bingsu Korean Dessert Café in uptown Waterloo.

A dessert and sweet snack, bingsu is finely shaved ice made from a frozen milk solution ⁠— shaved into "snowflakes" ⁠— from a specialized machine.

The cafe makes six bingsu, topped with fruit and sauces, from tiramisu to matcha.

In Korea, bingsu is popular even in the winter, according to co-owner Sunny Yoo.

"When you've had some hot food, you feel you want to have some cold dessert sometimes like ice cream," says Yoo.

"I believe in Canada, customers will love bingsu in the winter season too."

The restaurant also makes warm desserts, including a hot "kraffle," a Korean hybrid croissant-waffle, and bungeo-ppang, a unique fish-shaped waffle stuffed with home-made red-bean paste. Other stuffings might include sweet chestnuts or walnuts.

Made with a semi-sweet batter and cooked in a large waffle press, the snack ⁠— also known as taiyaki in Japan ⁠— is inspired by the restaurant owners who, as kids in Korea, recall visiting street-food stalls and buying the snack-to-go.

Likely of Japanese origin, bungeo-ppang is more than a sweet and less than a meal. It often served as a filling bite for people who couldn't afford more.

"Bungeo-ppang is a street food for when you are feeling hungry, and we wanted to introduce it here," says Yoo of Bingsu. "It's a bit healthier and very delicious."

The significance of the fish shape, according to Yoo, brings "good blessings and good fortune." The waffle yields a chewy texture rather than a cake-like one.

Korea's bread history

Across town in Kitchener's Mill Courtland neighbourhood, Manon Bakery is an 18-month-old business owned and operated by Chae Lee and Kelly Kim.

The bakery and café on Highland Road serves French-based pastries (such as fraisers and Génoise sponge cake) alongside a wide range of Korean sweets and breads.

For her part, Kim cooks up Korean jeyuk bokkeum "hoagies" on house-made soft buns. A contrast to the crispy French-style baguette of the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich.  

In Korea, bread is generally soft and slightly sweet, and it doesn't have the long history of, say, French or Italian breads, according to Lee. Such bread, in fact, reveals an interesting (and fraught) geo-political history: The country, now split in two, was once under rule of the Japanese empire.

"Korea's bread history is only a hundred years and actually [comes from] Japan," Lee says. "Unfortunately, early in the twentieth-century [Korea] was under Japan. It was colonization. We took a Japanese style [for baking]."

Lee makes a croquette, or korokke, inspired by the west as well.

"We learned our korokke from German baking," he says, "We make it with potatoes, ham and onions and fry it. But we make it with a sweet bread. That is Korean style. It's pretty different."

Regardless of politics and colonial history, for both Yoo and Lee, the pastries and baked goods invoke memories of childhood.

Lee, pointing to a pastry with a crumbly topping called saboro-ppang, says it's his favourite among the dozens offered on a menu he changes frequently.

"It's very Korean, and it's my memory," Lee says. "When I was in elementary school in Korea, we would have one with milk on Children's Day on May 5. I remember that."

The saboro-ppang is a sweet bread bun with a German-style streusel topping, a layer of thick buttercream and a touch of peanut butter.

Lee also bakes what looks like coffee-shop "twisted cinnamon" doughnuts called kkwabaegi.

Whatever the similarities and differences we can see in the pastries and sweets at Korean bakeries, these entrepreneurs hope to grow their businesses and attract customers from many other cultures.