Korean-Style Cream Cheese Garlic Bread

  4.9 – 9 reviews  • Rolls and Buns

I’m going to give you my version of this bizarre but addictive viral phenomenon, which is more spicy and less sweet. If a cheese Danish and garlic bread combined doesn’t sound delicious, you’ve probably never had one!

Prep Time: 30 mins
Cook Time: 35 mins
Additional Time: 2 hrs 30 mins
Total Time: 3 hrs 35 mins
Servings: 6
Yield: 6 rolls

Ingredients

  1. 1 cup warm water (100 to 110 degrees F/40 to 45 degrees C)
  2. 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
  3. 1 teaspoon white sugar
  4. 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
  5. 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  6. 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour for dusting
  7. 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
  8. 1 tablespoon white sugar
  9. 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  10. ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  11. 1 pinch cayenne pepper
  12. 2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
  13. ¾ cup thinly sliced green onion
  14. ¼ cup heavy cream
  15. ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
  16. 8 cloves garlic, finely minced
  17. 1 pinch salt
  18. 1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley
  19. 1 large egg
  20. 6 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Instructions

  1. Gather all ingredients.
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  3. Combine warm water, yeast, sugar, and 1 cup flour in a bowl. Let rest for 30 minutes.
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  5. Add 2 cups flour and salt to the bubbly yeast mixture. Beat with an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook until dough is fairly smooth, elastic, and tacky but not sticky, about 5 minutes. Feel free to add more flour if dough is too sticky.
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  7. Knead the dough briefly before transferring to a lightly greased bowl.
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  9. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours. At the 30-minute and 60-minute marks, uncover and fold dough with wet fingers 5 to 6 times to develop gluten structure.
  10. Transfer to a work surface and press flat, squeezing out excess air. Divide with a bench scraper into 6 equal portions. Roll each portion into a smooth ball.
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  12. Transfer rolled dough balls onto a Silpat®-lined baking sheet and press down gently. Dust lightly with remaining flour.
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  14. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
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  16. Bake rolls in the center of the preheated oven until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
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  18. While rolls cool, make cream cheese filling. Mix cream cheese, sugar, salt, black pepper, cayenne, parsley, green onions, and heavy cream together with a spatula until combined.
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  20. Mix melted butter, garlic, salt, parsley, and egg together for coating with a whisk until combined.
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  22. Transfer cooled rolls back onto the lined baking sheet. Use a sharp knife to make 6 cuts on each roll, about 90% of the way through.
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  24. Dip the cut rolls into the garlic butter and coat in between the slits using your hands or a pastry brush.
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  26. Pipe or spread 1/6 of the cream cheese mixture into each of the 6 rolls. Coat each once more in the garlic butter mixture. Top with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
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  28. Bake in the center of the preheated oven until beautifully browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.
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  30. Serve and enjoy!
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  32. You can use store-bought rolls instead if preferred.
  33. You can use 1 ½ teaspoons fine salt instead of kosher.

Reviews

Jeffrey Bruce
This was absolutely delicious! But… I lived in South Korea for a year about 2011-2012. I never saw anything like this. (Cream cheese wasn’t a common thing when I was there and most people don’t own ovens so if it is a thing I’m guessing it was a restaurant or something – I did see you talk about street food). I’m not saying you’re wrong, just wondering if it’s a newer thing since I lived there or where it was found. More curious than anything… again, super delicious!
Michelle Taylor
Amazing. This is the best garlic bread I’ve ever had. Well worth the time. I’m not sure what the “Korean” angle is supposed to be. I’ve talked with people who lived in Korea and they’ve heard of this.
Steven Mayo
Oh this is a truly beautiful bun, it’s so easy and satisfying!! I added some msg to the cream cheese filling and found myself short on fresh garlic so I used a little powdered garlic in place. 😉 Absolutely irresistible! The bread recipe is very straight forward and I was very happy with everything.
Eric Heath
Perfection. I’ll make these rolls again, but use them for soup!
Sara Harris
These were really good! I didn’t let them raise for the 2 hours with kneading in between, I just used my mixer and kneaded for 10 minutes then raising only took about an hour. I used chives instead of green onions and I added some of the garlic to the cream cheese filling. They came out fantastic!
Daniel Hill
I used Danish extra creamy blue cheese and leeks. I only used tarragon and chives. It was amazing!
Alyssa Martin
Another Chef John success! I was going to do the bread from scratch, but was prepping to host a bday party and was too short on time. So we used store bought rolls. These turned out SO WELL. There were 9 of us and we all loved them. I could have spread the cream cheese mixture out a bit more through the buns (it was a bit clumped in the middle – my bad, I was rushed). Otherwise, perfection! I still plan to try this recipe by making the bread from scratch, and will update my review when I do that. I served these with Tatyana’s borscht (do a google search for the recipe – best borscht I’ve tried!), with a side of grilled asparagus. Excellent meal. One of my guests ate a whole bun (they were big), and snuck another one while she was doing the dishes! So beware… as Chef John says, these are addictive!
Jacqueline Chang
Amazing recipe! I did some things differently (since I wanted to get closer to the more authentic recipe, without the buckets of sugar) which I’ll describe below: – doubled the entire recipe, yielding 15 rolls (my raw dough portions were about 100g each, and I piped about 50g of filling inside each one) – increased the sugar amount in the filling (doubled) and also added a bit of sugar to the garlic butter mixture. – decreased the amount of green onions The results were AWESOME, I’m addicted to them. Make sure to spread your filling until the bottom of the slits, so the bread don’t become dry. They freeze beautifully, just pack them without the 2nd baking and reheat them in an airfryer or oven. I’ll definitely be doing this delicious calorie bomb again! Hahaha
Tracy Marks
I was pressed for time, so I used Chicago hard rolls (super round rolls ) from the bakery but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. Amazing! So delicious. And quick & easy. I’ll need to work on making sure the inside spreads out more next time, but these were absolutely delicious. Great crunch and flavor. 10 out of 10 would recommend. Everyone loved them. And leftovers are yummy at room temp, too!

 

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