Hangwa
is a general term for traditional Korean confections. With tteok, forms the sweet food category in Korean cuisine. Common ingredients of include grain flour, fruits and roots, sweet ingredients such as honey and yeot, and spices such as cinnamon and ginger.
Names
translates to "Korean confectionery" referring to traditional confections contrasting with yanggwa, which identifies "Western confectionery". In the past was called jogwa which means "artificial fruit" or gwajeongnyu as meaning "fruit food category".History
The history of goes back to the era of the three kingdoms, when various types of confections were consumed by royals during festivities, national holidays or in court, according to the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms.Following the two Buddhist dynasties, Unified Silla in the era of two kingdoms and Goryeo, the cultivation of crops and consumption of confections increased drastically as the Buddhist diets forbade meat. Confections were offered in Goryeo's national feasts, rites, ceremonies, and banquets, including the two Buddhist festivals, the Lotus Lantern Festival and the Festival of the Eight Vows. Prevailing tea ceremonies also required more types of confections.
Concerns regarding the increasingly excessive consumption of confections that have large amounts of oil, grain, and honey have consequently lead to several regulations throughout the course of its history. In 1117, King Sukjong restricted the extravagant usage of deep-fried grain confections. In 1192, deep-fried grain confections were mandated to be replaced with fruits and in 1353, a total ban on deep-fried grain confections was issued.
Restrictions continued in the Joseon, according to Comprehensive Collection of the National Codes that recorded that the use of deep-fried grain confections was restricted solely for rites, weddings, and toasts to longevity. Commoners caught eating them on occasions other than that were subjected to monetary fines or corporal punishment.
Categories
can be classified into eight main categories, namely dasik, gwapyeon, jeonggwa, suksil-gwa, yeot-gangjeong, yugwa, yumil-gwa, and candies.- Candies – Traditional Korean candies can be eaten as they are, or used as sweetening ingredients in other types of. Dang or Dangryu refers to hard and sweet confection. It can be made of crystallized sugar, or saccharified starch. Yeot is a traditional sweet in either liquid or solid form, as a syrup, taffy, or candy. It is made with grains such rice, glutinous rice, glutinous sorghum, corn, sweet potatoes, by saccharifying them using barley malt.Dasik, literally "tea food", is a bite-size sweet that is normally accompanied by tea. It is made by pressing honied powder into a decorative mold. Typical ingredients include rice flour, pine pollen, black sesame, chestnut, and soybean.Gwapyeon is a jelly-like summer dessert made with a variety of fruits, such as berries, cherries, and apricots. It is made by mixing fruit juice with starch and agar to attain a gelatinous consistency.Jeonggwa is a crispy, chewy sweet made of candied fruits, [list of list of root vegetables|root vegetables|root]s, or seeds. Common ingredients include yuja, quince, apricot, lotus root, radish, carrot, ginseng, balloon flower root, ginger, burdock root, bamboo shoot, and winter melon.Suksil-gwa, literally "cooked fruit", consists of fruit, roots, or seeds cooked and sweetened with honey. Common ingredients include chestnut, jujube, and ginger. Suksil-gwa is similar to—and sometimes classified as—jeonggwa, but has unique characteristics that differentiate it from the jeonggwa category.Yeot-gangjeong is made by mixing toasted seeds, nuts, beans, or popped grains with rice syrup and then cutting it into desired shapes. Common ingredients are pine nuts, walnuts, peanuts, sesame or perilla seeds, and popped rice.Yugwa is a deep-fried confection made with glutinous rice flour dough. It can be classified into gangjeong, sanja, and hangwa depending on its shape and size.Yumil-gwa refers to a deep-fried confection made of wheat flour dough. It may be made of various ingredients such as honey, cooking oil, cinnamon powder, nuts and cheongju. It may be classified as mandu-gwa, maejap-gwa, or yakgwa according to the cooking methods.