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Butter 'tteok' the latest dessert to pop like trouble as trends come and go at light speed

Published: 24 Mar. 2026, 07:00

Butter rice cakes are displayed at a dessert cafe in Seoul at around 3 p.m. on March 10. Butter rice cake, made with glutinous rice flour, butter and milk, is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, and has recently begun trending on social media. [NOH YU-RIM]

Dessert trends are changing so quickly in Korea that small business owners are finding it hard to keep up. As buzzworthy sweets flare up and fade within weeks, cafe operators say they are being squeezed by volatile demand, inventory risks and rising ingredient costs.

“Dessert trends move so fast these days that it is hard even to decide how much to make each day in advance,” said a dessert cafe owner surnamed Kim in Seodaemun District, western Seoul.

Kim recently began selling butter tteok (rice cake), a dessert said to be trending on social media. The outlook already feels uncertain. Even though full-scale sales began only about two weeks ago, daily demand for the dessert, which had reached as many as 200 pieces a day at the peak of the craze, has recently fallen by half.

Butter tteok is a baked dessert made with glutinous rice dough, milk and butter that originated in Shanghai.

“During the peak of the Dubai-style chewy cookie craze, pistachio spread prices jumped to 1.7 million won [$1,120] for 10 kilograms [22 pounds],” Kim said. “Back then, I was tracking down ingredients just to keep the business going, but lately, demand for both Dubai-style chewy cookies and butter tteok has fallen off, and trends are shifting so quickly that managing inventory is not easy.”

Starbucks Korea discontinued its Dubai chewy roll, which it launched on Jan. 30 amid the Dubai-style chewy cookie trend, in less than two months, according to industry sources on Monday. The item had initially drawn such intense interest that customers lined up before stores opened on launch day just to buy it.

Dubai-style chewy tarts are displayed at a Paris Baguette store in Seoul on March 23. [NOH YU-RIM]

Paris Baguette’s Dubai-style chewy tart, released on Jan. 23, also sold out frequently in the mornings during its early run, but the excitement has cooled.

“A customer even told us last month that they had come from another district just to buy the Dubai-style chewy tart,” an employee at a Paris Baguette store in Seoul said. “But this month, demand has clearly dropped.”

Large retailers are also seeing sales of ingredients used in the Dubai-style chewy cookie trend decline. Pistachio sales in January rose 138.5 percent from the previous month, but then fell 41.2 percent in February and 32 percent in March from a month earlier, according to Emart.

Lotte Mart also said that sales of cocoa powder rose 82.6 percent in January from the previous month, increased just 13.1 percent in February and then dropped 20.8 percent in March.

A notice announcing discounted Dubai-style chewy cookies is posted at a bakery in Seoul. [NOH YU-RIM]

The whimsical dessert trend hits harder for small business owners. As the life cycle of dessert fads grows shorter, demand is becoming harder to forecast while inventory burdens and cost risks are rising at the same time.

“Dubai-style chewy cookies and butter tteok were not originally part of my main menu, but I felt like it would be hard to attract customers if I did not follow social media trends,” said a cafe owner surnamed Hwang in Ansan, Gyeonggi. “If I buy ingredients in large quantities in advance, it becomes difficult to deal with them once the trend dies down. But if I delay purchasing them, I worry prices for raw materials could spike again, like they did during the Dubai-style chewy cookie craze.”

Experts say the phenomenon reflects structural characteristics of dessert consumption.

“Desserts, which are usually seen as something to have after a meal, are less of a financial burden than a full meal and easy for consumers to try,” said Heo Gyung-ok, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University. “That helps trends spread quickly, but as we saw with tanghulu, the glossy candied fruit, the cycle is extremely short. If small business owners fail to catch those shifts in time, it can lead to inventory burdens and losses.”

Dubai-style chewy chocolate cookies are stacked in a bakery cafe in central Seoul on Feb. 23. [JIN MIN-JI]

Some analysts also say the speed at which trends appear and disappear is accelerated by the fear of missing out, especially on social media.

“Specific desserts tend to be amplified on social media and spread as if they are a bigger craze than they really are,” said Yang Su-jin, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University.

“Because of that, it is very risky for small independent business owners, rather than franchises, to overinvest or make excessive decisions in response to these trends. It is important for them to maintain the competitiveness of their core business while making measured attempts to respond.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY NOH YU-RIM [[email protected]]