How to make songpyeon
1. Songpyeon dough
Songpyeon is made with short grain rice powder (쌀가루), make sure it's NOT glutenous rice (sweet rice) powder (찹쌀가루). Traditionally, Korean home cooks soak short grain rice overnight, drain, and then take to a gristmill to get it ground into fine powder. Nowadays, there are frozen rice powders are available at Korean market.
However, Processed dry rice flour will not work for songpyeon.
Then, use boiling hot water to make the dough, and then knead until the dough is nice and soft. The longer you knead, the chewier the texture of the rice cake will be.
2. Natural coloring
Songpyeon dough is typically flavored and colored with natural ingredients such as mugwort, kabocha, and dried fruit powders. This recipe shows how to use mugwort powder and kabocha, I also played around with different natural food coloring and came up with a couple of other colors. You can choose any number of options I’ve given here, or use your own food coloring options. Also see my Beet songpyeon recipe for vibrant red color.
3. Songpyeon filling
The most common filling is made with sweetened sesame seeds. Black soybeans and mung beans are also traditional. This recipe shows how to make it with sesame seeds.
4. How to shape songpyeon
1. Tear off a small piece of the dough enough to make roughly 1-inch ball. Roll tightly between your palms to shape a ball. 2. Make a well in the ball by pressing into it with your thumb, and press outwards, with both of your thumbs, on the inside walls of the well to slightly expand the opening. 3. Place ½ teaspoon of the filling in the well. 4. Seal tightly by squeezing the edges together. 5. Squeeze the whole rice cake lightly in your palm to firm it up. 6. Gently roll between your palms to smooth out the surface. 7. Shape it into a nice crescent shape by pinching the long ends with your thumb and index finger. 8. Pinch along the side to create a wing.