Korean Fried Chicken Cake

Bringing my friend’s request to reality, this Korean Fried Chicken Cake is a savory cake made from rice and Korean fried chicken. Perfect for those who do not like sweets and real cakes.

I have been asked a lot by my friends to make a cake that is not a cake. What I mean about is not the usual sweet cakes from a mixture of flour, shortening, eggs, and sugar. But it is actually about cake alternatives made from other ingredients. Not only limited to sweet foods, but it could be savory foods or something that looks similar to cake shape.

When I still worked at my corporate job, the job of getting my coworkers’ birthday cake fell on my hands. I usually alternate the sweet and savory options. But in most cases, they asked me to make savory cakes because not everyone out there actually likes cakes. Shocking, right?

There were about a dozen people in my old office. Consider I had to make about one cake for each month. My creativity was tested because I did not like to do the same things over and over. I have done a lot from lasagna, okonomiyaki stacks to tortilla cakes. I did not usually post this kind of cake on my website, but my friends mostly know about this from my Instagram stories. That is how my friend knew about this and asked me to make an unusual cake like this Korean Fried Chicken Cake.

The Story Behind This Cake

This custom cake was made especially by request, considering the receiver did not like sweets. Last month, a friend commissioned me to make a cake with a reference to my previous Dakgangjeong recipe. She knew that I liked to experiment with new things and challenged me to make something out of ordinary. I was only given 5 days to send this cake to the customer and gave a certain of the budget for this project. That is how Korean Fried Chicken Cake was born.

This cake was basically a three layers cake. The bottom and the top were made from a mixture of steaming white rice with nori furikake seasoning and sesame oil. The middle layer and the topping were the boneless Korean Fried Chicken. For decoration, I drizzled the top with Kewpie mayonnaise, sprinkled sesame seeds, and topped it with curly green onion slices.

I could not find any reference for this cake, so I took a rough guess of how much rice and fried chicken I needed. For the cake size, I used the smallest ring I had, which was a 6-inch cake ring. I also estimated that 1kg of fried chicken would be enough, but apparently, it was not. Therefore, you will see why the rice proportion is too much considering how short the middle layer is. Fortunately, my friend was not that fussy about it.

I was actually very happy with how it looked. Next time if I have the chance to do this again, I would like to fix the proportion of rice and Korean fried chicken. It means more Korean fried chicken and less rice so that I got the nice same thickness layers.

How about you? Do you prefer an ordinary cake or something unusual like this for your birthday?

Yield: 1 6-inch/15 cm cake

Korean Fried Chicken Cake

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Bringing my friend's request to reality, this Korean Fried Chicken Cake is a savory cake made from rice and Korean fried chicken. Perfect for those who do not like sweets and real cakes.

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Additional Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 11 cups steaming medium or short grain rice
• 3 tbsp nori furikake seasoning
• 2 tbsp sesame oil

Fried Chicken

• 1 kg boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size
• 1 1/2 tbsp rice wine
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 2/3 cup cornstarch (85 gr)
• oil, for deep frying

Korean Fried Chicken Sauce

• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 1/2 tbsp gochujang
• 3 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Garnish

• Kewpie mayonnaise
• Roasted sesame seeds
• Green onion curls

Instructions

Korean Fried Chicken

1. Marinate the chicken with rice wine, salt, and black pepper for 30 minutes.
2. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and pour a generous amount of oil for deep-frying. When the oil is hot enough, coat a piece of chicken with starch evenly and slide the coated chicken piece into the hot oil. Repeat until half of the chicken is placed in the hot oil. Fry for about 3-4 minutes or until the batter is light golden brown.
3. Take out the done chicken and place them onto some kitchen paper while frying the remaining chicken pieces.
4. Deep fry the chicken again and fry them until the batter is golden and crisp for about 2-3 minutes. Set aside.
5. In a small bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients well. Set aside.
6. Remove oil from the skillet. Heat the mixed sauce with low heat until it starts to bubble. Simmer until it thickens slightly. Add the fried chicken into the sauce and stir well until evenly coated. Remove from the heat and transfer the coated chicken to a large platter.

Assembly

1. Scoop the steaming white rice into a large bowl and let it cool slightly before handling. Mix the nori furikake seasoning and sesame oil until well combined.
2. Put a 6-inch/15 cm cake ring on the center of a cake board. Line the side with a 5-inch/12 cm clear acetate strip and tape closed securely.
3. Press half of the rice into the cake ring with the back of a spoon. Press hard so that it will stay together.
4. For the middle layer, place 3/4 of the Korean fried chicken on top of the rice layer. Start from the edges and try to pack this down fairly well against the sides of the acetate strip. Then, sprinkle with sesame seeds.
5. Press the remaining rice on top of the Korean fried chicken. Make sure the top is flat.

Garnish

1. Stack remaining Korean fried chicken on top of the cake nicely. Drizzle with mayonnaise, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and garnish with some green onion curls.
2. Best eaten on the same day it is made.

Did you make this recipe?

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