Danyang café salt bread, crisp from frozen: Black Garlic Salt Bread

A Danyang Gugyeong Market bakery after Gosu Cave

After enjoying the eye-pleasing 40-minute course at Danyang’s Gosu Cave, we headed over to Gugyeong Market because hunger is not something we can put up with. Danyang Gugyeong Market, close to the tourist spot, has delicious restaurants, and lots of bakeries inside the market too. Honestly… there were plenty of Danyang Gugyeong Market bakeries that were exactly to the adults’ taste, but I couldn’t spot many that would suit the kids, so bread wasn’t an essential stop.

But one place was added to Hyeoni Mom’s family list for this trip. Salt bread with that lovely buttery aroma! It was at the end of an alley, yet Black Garlic Salt Bread (흑마늘소금빵) in Danyang was as bustling as anywhere else, and we successfully packed some to go. Here begins the review of bread we polished off in just two days after the trip.

• Location: 36 Dojeon 4-gil, Danyang-eup, Danyang-gun, Chungbuk
• Hours: Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun 10:00–20:00
• Regular closing days: Every Tuesday and Wednesday

Bread baked every morning with garlic and butter

These are breads baked every morning with Danyang’s native six-clove garlic, Korean sun-dried salt, and premium French gourmet butter. There were Cuchen rice cookers lined up along one side; apparently, they age the black garlic extract for the garlic bread in them before using it. I was curious because the care starts with the ingredients, and once I tried it, oh my, it was so good!

First, let’s order! We ordered Set 1, the classic style the kids like, and Set 2 so we could taste the garlic and black garlic versions. I recommend Set 3 for anyone who wants to try every flavor, and even the classic salt bread is reasonably priced, so I keep thinking maybe I should have bought five Set 1s. Well, now I have another reason to go to Danyang~

Waiting for samples while waiting for bread. They kept baking, but couldn’t keep up with how fast people were buying, so there was a short wait~ At first, I thought everyone was waiting to place an order. Haha.

The samples were generous too. They laid out several sliced breads across a big tray for tasting, and after one bite, the sweet garlic flavor was just delicious, delicious. The garlic taste and aroma weren’t overpowering, so the kids ate them well too.

Handle packaging that was handy while exploring the market

As we walked around Gugyeong Market buying this and that, the two adults’ hands soon weren’t enough, so the kids were carrying things too. Each set came in a bag with handles, and it felt like they had even thought about making the packaging easy to carry around.

The handles and bags weren’t flimsy but sturdy, and the packaging let us put warm bread straight in without it getting soggy. It was much neater and tastier than bringing it home in an ordinary bag. The price isn’t burdensome either, and I can see why people buy several for gifts.

How did we warm up frozen salt bread?

How to warm up the bread! The reason I thought it would have been fine to buy lots was that the next day, I baked the frozen salt bread in a Cuckoo oven at 160°C for 3 minutes without thawing it. It was delicious—crisp on the outside and moist inside, just like freshly baked salt bread.

The taste of generously sized salt bread and black garlic salt bread

Each bread was quite large too. The salt bread was bigger than the famous salt-bread place in our neighborhood—such generous market spirit from this Danyang Gugyeong Market bakery! We cut it into big pieces for dessert after dinner. The garlic salt bread I had sampled was of course delicious, and the black garlic salt bread, which looked deep in color from the outside, had a more crowd-pleasing flavor than expected, so it wasn’t too much.

That hollow center means it’s properly made salt bread, right? The savory salt and buttery flavor were lovely. The original version was easy to have as breakfast or a snack, and equally easy to pair with milk or juice.

We were full, but it seemed like it would taste even better with milk, so when I poured myself a glass, everyone said they wanted one too~ The black garlic salt bread is a moist style because it has garlic sauce brushed over it, and its garlic aroma is stronger than the other breads, so I think adults would like it.

We had visited Gosu Cave, and the drive home was quite long, but we came back with both hands full of treats from this Danyang Gugyeong Market bakery, so there was no need to worry about an evening snack. There are still many Danyang sights we haven’t explored, so we plan to visit once more in late autumn—and I’ll be buying plenty of salt bread from Black Garlic Salt Bread at Danyang Gugyeong Market.