Korean Cream Cheese Garlic Bread

These cream cheese garlic bread is an upgraded richer version of the old fashion garlic bread. It started in Korea with regular buns carved and cream cheese stuffed between the slit. And it didn't stop there, these buns then dipped into melted butter seasoned with garlic and parsley. Then these ensemble got a finishing touch in the oven. Sounds like fun ? Check out the recipe below. It's an adapted version of a cookpad recipe by Prisca Arthalia.

You can save time by buying ready made buns. These buns are about the size of burger buns but not as airy. But make your own buns are more satisfying as you know what's in it.

Yield : 4

Ingredients for buns :
110 ml milk (1.5 tbs milk powder with 110 ml air hangat)
30 gr sugar
4 gr yeast
100 gr oatmeal flour (made from rolled oat)
150 gr all purpose flour
1 egg
3 gr salt
20 gr unsalted butter

Cream cheese :

250 gr cream cheese

25 gr sugar

50 ml whip cream 

Butter glaze

130 gr unsalted butter

1 egg

2 ts sweetened condensed milk

2 tbs chopped garlic

1 tbs chopped parsley (fresh/dried)

Instructions :

To make buns :

Mix sugar, yeast and fresh milk in a smaller bowl. Stir until the yeast and sugar is completely dissolved. In a bigger bowl, put together flour, egg and salt. Then pour the yeast mixture into the bigger bowl. Mix well until it formed a soft dough. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes then put in the soft butter and knead some more until the dough is elastic. About another 10-12 minutes.

Shape the dough into a round shape and put it into an oiled bowl. Cover with shrink wrap. Keep in the dark and warm area.

After about 1 hour the dough should rise and double in size. If not you may need to wait another 30 more minutes.

Punch the dough to release the gas. Knead the dough a bit to shape it and using a scale divide it into 4 same size dough ball.

Now you have 4 smaller size dough ball. Knead some more and shape them into smaller round dough balls. Place them in an oiled or lined baking pan and covered with shrink wrap.

Preheat oven to 360˚F (180˚ C)

While waiting for the buns to be baked. Let’s put together the cream cheese mix. In a medium size bowl, put all the ingredients for cream cheese stuffing (cream cheese, sugar and whip cream). Use a piping bag for this job if you have one. Or you could put your cream cheese stuffing in a Ziploc bag and cut the tip. Or if you are lazy like me, you could use a butter knife and a bit patient to do this.

For the butter glaze, melt butter using a bowl placed inside a saucepan with hot water. This way will make the butter melt without direct heat. After the butter melted, put it aside and let it cool slightly before you put in an egg and whisk it together. After the butter and egg got all whisked together, then it’s time to put in sweetened condensed milk, chopped garlic and chopped parsley.

Once the buns are golden color. Take them out of the oven and cool on the cooling rack. Once they’re cool enough to be handled then using a bread knife, score the bread from one side to another careful not to cut it through. You want a slit deep enough so you could stuff the cream cheese but not too deep that the bun will completely split in two pieces.

To make a nice and even score, sort of eye your bun first so your slit would be even around the bun.

Preheat oven to 160˚C or 320˚F

Using the piping bag/Ziploc bag/bread knife, put in the cream cheese in the cut. You could also use a napkin to tidy up if it turns out a bit messy. This process is optional if you are making them for your own consumption.

Use a spoon to spoon some of the butter glaze and pour it into the slit area of the bread. After that, pick up the bread and dip it top down onto the butter glaze so the bread could absorb all the butter in. Put it aside on a clean lined baking pan.

Repeat the process for the rest of the buns. For decoration, you could add a dollop of cream cheese in the middle of the bun.

Pop the buns in the preheated oven and bake for another 10 minutes. Then take them out to slightly cool off before serving. Enjoy.