Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
In search of Korea's virally popular tissue bread
A bag of tissue bread rests on a scooter outside Truffle Bakery in central Seoul's Hannam-dong, July 4. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
Sometime in early July, a friend from my hometown shared a video introducing "tissue bread," a mini-loaf of bread in which each of the slices is tissue-thick — that someone had found in Korea.
I hadn't heard of it before, but my friend encouraged me to seek it out, telling me, "You need to get it and try it and taunt me." So here you go, Ester.
It appears tissue bread isn't a proprietary specialty of just one bakery, but made by a few. One of these wasn't far from work — The Truffle Bakery (@trufflebakery.kr on Instagram), which has a couple locations, including one convenient for me in Hannam-dong. One day I had a bit of spare time, so I made the journey.
I wasn't sure what to expect: a huge lineup like at Daejeon's Sungsimdang Bakery? Or maybe it was so popular that it wouldn't have any in stock. Or worse, way too expensive. But nope, I walked in when there were no other customers. I found the item on a shelf — pretty sure I saw two of them — and made my purchase without any kind of wait. The price was 7,500 won, which seems fair considering the volume compared to other baked goods. I've heard they make only 100 a day and usually sell out by 2 p.m., but this may have died down in the ensuing months.
I took this cube-shaped loaf to the office, where I sampled it and offered some to a co-worker. I still suspect the first piece I had off the top may have been some kind of paper wrap. But the next couple, which were crust, were pretty good, and then I got to the white bread part inside.
A piece of tissue bread / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
I was relieved that it wasn't sugary like too many bakery products in Korea have been. Plus, it doesn't quite taste like plain white bread, which would have met my expectations and been otherwise unmemorable. The easiest way to describe the flavor would be croissant — fluffy and buttery, with a thin crust around the exterior.
It seemed a little difficult to peel off the tissue bread one slice at a time. After going about halfway through it, I found it was easier to tear off two at a time. I was eating the slices without any toppings, but I imagine they'd be good with jam or small amounts of butter. Maybe it would be possible to make mini jambon-beurre sandwiches if deli meat weren't so expensive here. Tissue bread is as delicate as its name implies, so you wouldn't want to load it up too much.
The trick to making tissue bread appears not to be slicing a loaf thinly but by making thin layers of dough through folding and rolling.
Tissue bread seems to have gone viral earlier this year, around April and May. Tapas Magazine on May 7 said it "broke the internet."
A selection of cubepies at Margaret Yeonnam-dong, Thursday / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
A cross-section of part of a Matcha Cream Cubepie at Margaret Yeonnam, Thursday / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Many offered comparisons between this tissue bread and rumali roti, an unleavened flatbread from India, but the similarities are few and far between.
I suspect having looked around online that tissue bread is a slight variation of the cube croissant which seems to come from London, and may be available at Sofitel Ambassador Seoul Pastry.
A similar creation available in Korea is the cubepie, which is a signature of Cafe Margaret in western Seoul's Yeonnam-dong (@cafe.margaret on Instagram).
The cubepie looks almost the same, except it is covered with a cream topping of various kinds. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but when I opened it up, I discovered it had a creamy filling inside. So it wasn’t, as I had feared, just a couple of quick bites of Japanese matcha tea cream followed by plain bread. On the other hand, it wasn't readily obvious how to eat a cream-filled cubepie, and the experience was a little less novel, more like eating a cube-shaped cupcake.
The presentation of cubepies was nicer than tissue bread, and they were actually cheaper by a full 1,000 won despite having more ingredients than plain tissue bread. But the cream overwhelmed the actual bread in flavor, and they seem a little less of a versatile food. A cubepie is certainly a good thing to eat at a cafe, but on the other hand a tissue bread can be used creatively with a variety of ingredients.
Jon Dunbar