From Dubai Chocolate to Godiva Mochi: My Accidental Year as a Dessert Trend Chaser
I never planned on becoming a dessert expert. But my girlfriend is a teuminnyeo (트민녀), Korean slang for a woman who's always on top of the latest trends.
When a request comes in for whatever dessert is blowing up this week, I track it down, we try it together, and then the next fad arrives. After a year of this, I've somehow become a person with opinions about the moisture level of shredded pastry. I can fix bugs, but apparently not my appetite, and not the trend cycle either.
So I turned that year into a chart. At the end, I'll tell you the one dessert that came out on top for me.
The short version
- My favorite viral dessert so far: dujjonku, the Dubai chewy cookie
- What to drink with it: a-a (아아), Korean shorthand for iced Americano
- What to look for: a filling that's moist but doesn't run
- Not into very sweet things? Try Dubai towel cake with milk
- Where to go in Seoul: Miel Cakery, near Seoul National University Station
The dessert timeline, in one chart
Saying "trends move fast" doesn't land without numbers, so I pulled some. This chart compares weekly search interest in South Korea from Google Trends, all on the same scale.
Three things stand out.
- Dujjonku was in a league of its own. Dubai chocolate peaked at 27 in 2024. Dujjonku hit 100, about 3.7 times higher.
- The handoff was fast. Only 8 weeks separate the dujjonku peak from the butter tteok peak.
- Nothing has matched it since. Butter tteok topped out at 41 and Hanjeongseon at 38, less than half of dujjonku's peak, however long the lines looked.
| When | Dessert | Proof of the hype |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 2024 | Dubai chocolate | 520,000 sold in 3 weeks at the CU convenience store chain |
| Peak: Jan 2026 | Dujjonku | Lines even at −13°C (9°F) |
| Peak: Mar 2026 | Butter tteok | 5,000 GS25 preorders gone in a day |
| Since Sep 2026 | Hanjeongseon, Godiva mochi | About 700,000 Hanjeongseon collab rice cakes sold at GS25 in a month; Godiva's line closed before 7 a.m. |
One caveat: this chart shows Google search interest, not sales. It leaves out Naver, Korea's other major search engine, and "Hanjeongseon" searches may include people with that name. Read it for the overall shape, not exact numbers.
Four fads, four acts
Act 1. Dubai chocolate: where it all started
Strictly speaking, it peaked in July 2024, so it falls outside the past year. But I can't leave it out. Chocolate stuffed with kadaif (thin, thread-like Middle Eastern pastry) and pistachio cream is the root of what came next.
There's a fun detail in the chart. Searches for Dubai chocolate sat around 1 for most of 2025, then climbed back to 7 in January 2026. When dujjonku took off, it brought the original back with it.
Act 2. Dujjonku: the star of this post
Dujjonku (두쫀쿠) is short for dubai jjondeuk kuki, or Dubai chewy cookie. It's a chewy melted-marshmallow shell around a filling of pistachio cream and crunchy kadaif. It's called a cookie, but its texture is often compared to a Korean rice cake.
As the craze heated up, prices ranged from around 5,000 won to more than 12,000 won apiece (roughly US$3.50 to $8.50). The usual me would have laughed at nearly 10,000 won for a cookie. More on the unusual me in a moment.
Act 3. Butter tteok: filling the gap
In March 2026, just as dujjonku cooled off, this one moved in. Tteok means rice cake, and butter tteok is a glutinous rice dough enriched with butter and milk, crisp outside and chewy inside. It's said to trace back to a snack from Shanghai.
You can see a smaller second bump in April. Then in early June it plunges from 14 to 3 and stays near the bottom.
Act 4. Hanjeongseon and Godiva mochi: still playing
This fall belongs to the rice cake. Hanjeongseon's rice cakes filled with fruit and yogurt cream started the lines, and then mochi from Godiva's store at Lotte World Mall in Jamsil, Seoul had people showing up before dawn.
Hanjeongseon was still at 23 in the first week of November, which is high compared with how quickly the earlier fads faded. The ingredients have gone from chocolate to rice cake, but one analysis sees the same love of chewy textures carrying through. Koreans, it seems, can't resist chew.
My winner: dujjonku
I've had all of these one way or another, but dujjonku is the one I truly loved. How much? Over a season of a month or two, I ate about 200,000 won (roughly US$140) of it.
I can't blame my girlfriend for that part. That was all my own appetite.
Eating that much taught me that one thing decides how good a dujjonku is: how moist the filling is. Change the share of pistachio cream, and it becomes a completely different dessert.
Here's where I landed.
- It shouldn't be too dry. If all you taste is kadaif, it's like eating an expensive cracker.
- It shouldn't run, either. When cream pours out, the chew and the crunch both get lost.
- The sweet spot is moist but holding its shape. The cut surface should look glossy, with no cream escaping.
If you can see customer photos before you buy, check the cross section first. This one test can help you avoid a disappointing cookie.
The pairing: always a-a
Have your dujjonku with a-a (아아), the iced Americano Koreans drink all year round, even in winter. A sip of something bitter and cold cuts right through the rich sweetness, so the next bite tastes as good as the first. It may be named after Dubai, but as far as I'm concerned, this pairing was perfected in Korea.
Where to eat it: Miel Cakery, Seoul
The place I really recommend is Miel Cakery (미엘케이커리), on Sharosu-gil, a cafe street in Seoul's Gwanak District.
- Address: 3F, 71 Gwanak-ro 14-gil, Gwanak-gu, Seoul (near Seoul National University Station)
- Menu: Dubai chewy cookie, Dubai towel cake, and more, according to DiningCode, a Korean restaurant guide
- Hours: Daily, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to the same page
Some reviewers found the door closed when they arrived, and seasonal menus change, so check the hours and menu before you go.
Not into very sweet things? Towel cake and milk
If dujjonku sounds too sweet, try Dubai towel cake. A towel cake is a thin crepe filled with cream and rolled up like a towel, and adding pistachio kadaif makes it the Dubai version.
That image is an AI-generated example, so it doesn't match the real thing. To see Miel Cakery's actual Dubai towel cake, check out the cross-section photo and how it's made on the shop's Instagram.
Skip the a-a for this one and have milk instead. It goes down smoothly, so it's an easy choice even if you can't handle much sugar.
FAQ
The dujjonku craze is over. Is it still worth trying?
It's a better time, if anything. Search interest in the first week of November was about 3% of its peak. As early as March, one shop said production had fallen and it rarely sold out anymore. Some shops may have dropped it, though, so check first.
What's the difference between Dubai chocolate and dujjonku?
The fillings are similar, but the outside is different. Dubai chocolate is wrapped in chocolate, and dujjonku in a chewy marshmallow shell.
What's the next big thing?
If I knew, I'd have stocked up already. Your best source is my girlfriend.
Fads fade, flavor stays
Dujjonku's search line has already hit the floor, and that's why I think now is the best time to try it. You don't have to stand in the cold, and you don't have to spend 200,000 won like I did.
If you ever find yourself on Sharosu-gil, order one dujjonku and an iced Americano. If the cross section is moist but not running, you'll know exactly what I mean.
The butter tteok, rice cake, and towel cake photos and the cover image are AI-generated and don't show any shop's actual menu items. The chart and moisture illustration were made for this post, using Google Trends data retrieved on November 4, 2026. Dubai chocolate photo: WiseWoman, CC BY 4.0, resized. Dujjonku cross-section photo: Real rism, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized. This post was originally written in Korean and translated into English.
