Kinako Streusel

& planning for my first bake sale

I’m currently recipe testing and preparing for my first bake sale. I’m nervous but excited! There are truly too many things I want to bake and share, so it has been a process just to figure out the lineup of treats I want to offer. To narrow down the list, I focused on the flavors and ingredients I resonate with and find meaningful to me. Red bean paste, specifically as a muffin filling, popped up in my head immediately. I’ve been wanting to make red bean paste filled muffins for a while, specifically one with a glaze and another with a streusel. I wanted a streusel with a perfect balance sweet and savory like red bean paste, so when I found a bag of kinako in my pantry my eyes lit up.

Kinako, roasted soybean powder, has a unique, almost peanut-buttery, nuttiness that makes everything taste warm and toasty. In the streusel, I opted for dark brown sugar rather than granulated or light brown sugar to add dimensions of caramel and a graham crackery taste. And of course, butter and all purpose flour to help everything clump together to create a lovely bakery style streusel look.

It’s a quick and simple four ingredient recipe. One that elevates muffins, quick/yeast breads, cakes, brownies, etc. without overpowering other components. When I added the streusel on top of the red bean paste filled muffins, it didn’t compete with other flavors, just enhanced them. With everything put together, the muffins tasted like a delicious combo of soboro-ppang 소보로빵 and hoppang 호빵, two of my favorite Korean breads/buns. So nostalgic of the bakery goods I grew up eating in Korea. Needless to say, this is one of the treats I’ll be offering at my bake sale. It’s nostalgic, sentimental, and some of my all time favorite flavors all in one. Also, I’m just super into baking muffins right now :-)

This has become my go-to streusel recipe when my bake needs a little touch of *Korean bakery* magic. Not only is it aesthetic, but it hits all the sweet and savory cravings. I seriously can’t get enough of it.

Recipe

Makes enough streusel to top 10 - 12 muffins.

Ingredients

• 57 g (4 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted

• 40 g kinako

• 70 g all purpose flour

• 60 g dark brown sugar

Process:

1. Melt the butter and leave aside to slightly cool.

2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and carefully pour the melted butter into the bowl.

3. Gently mix everything together until the dry ingredients are saturated in butter and there are small to medium sized clumps throughout.¹

4. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over a prepared batter and gently press the streusel down before baking according to the recipe instructions.

1. Don’t mix too much or it will start to look like wet sand rather than a streusel. If this happens, clump the mixture back together with your fingers.