Korean Traditional Sweets: A Guide to Hangwa, Tteok, and Confections

Korea has a traditional confection tradition that almost no one outside Korea knows about. While Japanese wagashi has achieved some international recognition, Korean hangwa — the umbrella term for traditional Korean sweets — remains almost invisible in the global conversation about Asian desserts.

This is partly because hangwa is not served as a dessert in the Western sense. Traditional Korean meals don't end with a sweet course the way Western meals often do. Hangwa appears at tea ceremonies, ancestor memorial rites (jesa), wedding celebrations, seasonal festivals, and as gifts. It is ceremony food and aesthetic art as much as it is something to eat.

What Hangwa Is

Hangwa (한과) literally means "Korean confection" — it's a broad category covering traditional Korean sweets made from grain flours, honey, sesame, nuts, and seasonal flavoring. The word distinguishes traditional Korean sweets from Western confections (yang과) and from Chinese and Japanese imports.

The common ingredients across hangwa:

Rice flour or other grain flours (glutinous rice is most common)
Honey (cheong, either honey or rice syrup)
Sesame oil — used for frying and for flavor
Sesame seeds — as coating, filling, and garnish
Pine nuts — a premium garnish
Edible flowers and petals — seasonal aesthetic element
Natural colorings from plants (pumpkin for yellow, mugwort for green, gardenia for yellow, schisandra berry for red)

The Major Types of Hangwa

Yakgwa (약과): Honey Cookies

Yakgwa — literally "medicine confection" — is probably the best-known hangwa internationally. A fried, honey-soaked wheat flour cookie made from:

Wheat flour
Sesame oil
Honey
Ginger juice
Cheongju (rice wine)
Cinnamon

The dough is mixed (fat — sesame oil — is rubbed into flour, then liquids added), stamped into a flower or tortoise mold to create a distinctive shape, then deep-fried at low temperature (130-140°C) until cooked through. Then soaked in honey syrup and sprinkled with pine nuts and cinnamon.

What it tastes like: Dense, ginger-forward, deeply sweet from the honey soak, with a tender but firm texture and prominent sesame aroma. Not flaky or crisp — more like a deeply saturated cake. The ginger gives it a warmth.

When eaten: Yakgwa was historically a luxury item (wheat flour and honey were both expensive) associated with celebrations, offerings to ancestors, and ceremonial events. It appears on jesa (ancestral memorial) tables and was given as a prestigious gift. Today it's widely available at Korean confection shops.

Dasik (다식): Tea Cakes

Dasik are small, firmly pressed cakes made from dry powdered ingredients moistened just enough to hold a shape. The dough is pressed into carved wooden molds (dasikpan) that imprint decorative patterns — floral designs, Chinese characters for good fortune, geometric motifs.

Common dasik flavors:

Pine pollen dasik (황다식) — pale yellow, subtle pine flavor
Sesame dasik (흑임자다식) — made from black sesame
Red bean dasik — dark red, earthy
Chestnut dasik — pale gold, nutty

What they taste like: Delicate, subtly sweet, with a powdery, almost chalky texture that dissolves slowly. The flavor is mild and ingredient-forward — sesame dasik tastes of sesame, chestnut dasik of chestnut. They are not strongly sweet.

Purpose: As the name implies, dasik are tea confections — paired with traditional Korean tea (nok-cha, green tea, or boricha, roasted barley tea). They provide sweetness alongside the tea without overpowering it. The aesthetic presentation is considered as important as the taste.

Yugwa (유과): Fried Puffed Rice Cakes

Yugwa are puffed rice confections — glutinous rice flour is processed into a thick dough, shaped, dried, deep-fried (the dough puffs dramatically), then coated with honey syrup and rolled in puffed rice or sesame seeds.

What they taste like: Light, crispy, mildly sweet. The puffed rice coating gives a pleasant crunch. The base rice cake has a very neutral flavor that lets the coating (honey, sesame) carry the sweetness. Much lighter and less dense than yakgwa.

Visual: Yugwa are visually striking — the puffed white rice coating gives them a fluffy, almost cloud-like appearance. They're often made in elongated oval shapes.

Gangjeong (강정): Fried Rice Candy

Gangjeong are similar to yugwa but made in bite-sized pieces, typically coated with sesame seeds, puffed rice, or flower petals. They're lighter and more approachable than many hangwa.

Gangjeong are often the most visible hangwa at Korean traditional market stalls — colorful (red from gardenia, yellow from pumpkin), visually appealing, and varied.

Jeonggwa (정과): Candied Fruits and Roots

Jeonggwa are whole or sliced fruits, roots, or seeds simmered in honey or sugar syrup until they absorb the sweetness and become translucent. Similar in concept to European candied fruit or Japanese kinton, but with Korean ingredients.

Common jeonggwa:

Yeon-geun jeonggwa (lotus root) — thinly sliced lotus root with its distinctive hole pattern, glossy from honey
Doraji jeonggwa (balloon flower root) — mild white root candied to sweetness
Saenggang jeonggwa (ginger) — intensely ginger-flavored
Mogwa jeonggwa (quince) — floral and tart
Citrus peel jeonggwa — similar to European candied citrus peel

What they taste like: Varies by ingredient, but all jeonggwa share a sweet, slightly sticky gloss from the honey and a very tender texture. The ingredient's own flavor shines through — ginger jeonggwa is powerfully ginger, quince jeonggwa is perfumed and tart.

Yeot (엿): Korean Grain Candy / Taffy

Yeot is a traditional Korean confection made by fermenting grains (barley malt, glutinous rice), cooking the resulting malt extract down, then pulling the thick syrup into a taffy-like confection. The process is similar to making molasses taffy.

Types:

Ganggyeong yeot — from Ganggyeong, South Chungcheong; the most famous
Mul-yeot (liquid malt syrup) — used as a sweetener in Korean cooking
Ggeun-yeot (hard pulled candy) — solid, amber-colored, breaks with a sharp snap when cold

What it tastes like: Sweet with a distinctive malt character — deeper and more complex than plain sugar sweetness. The grain fermentation contributes a mild sourness that gives yeot depth.

Tteok: Rice Cake as Confection

Although tteok (rice cakes) appear in savory dishes, many tteok preparations are distinctly sweet and function as confections:

Hwajeon (flower rice cakes): Small pan-cooked rice cakes pressed with seasonal edible flowers — azalea petals in spring, chrysanthemum in fall. Eaten during spring picnic festivals. Among the most visually beautiful Korean traditional foods.

Susu tteok (sorghum rice cakes with red bean): Red-colored from sorghum flour, traditionally eaten at first birthdays to ward off bad luck.

Injeolmi (glutinous rice cakes coated in bean flour): Chewy, slightly sticky, coated in toasted soybean powder (konggaru) or sesame. One of the most popular tteok formats.

Song-pyeon (crescent-shaped rice cakes with fillings): The Chuseok (Harvest Festival) tteok, steamed over pine needles. Filled with sesame + honey or red bean paste.

Sujeonggwa and Sikhye: Traditional Sweet Drinks

Korean traditional sweets aren't only solid:

Sujeonggwa (수정과): A cold drink made from cinnamon, ginger, dried persimmon, and honey/sugar. Deep amber colored, strongly cinnamon-and-ginger flavored, with chewy pieces of rehydrated dried persimmon floating in it. Often served at the end of a formal Korean meal. Warming and spiced.

Sikhye (식혜): A sweet rice punch made by fermenting cooked rice with malt barley water. The result is sweet, slightly fermented (mildly sour), and cloudy. Chewy grains of rice float in the liquid. Often served cold.

Both drinks appear at jesa ceremonies and traditional celebrations.

The hangwa tradition is one of the overlooked treasures of Korean food culture — a confection art that developed sophisticated techniques for working with rice flour, honey, and seasonal ingredients into forms that are as much aesthetic statement as food. International interest in Korean food has not yet brought hangwa the recognition it deserves. For anyone eating in Korea, seeking out a traditional hangwa shop (hansik or hangwa shops exist in markets throughout Korea) is one of the most distinctive food experiences available.

The full recipes live in the book.

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