Butter Rice Cake: The Latest Food Trend Taking Asia by Storm!

[Asia Times—Reporter Shin Do] # We’d barely started selling the Dubai Jjondeuk Cookie (Du-zzonku) before its hype cooled. First it was spring-greens bibimbap, and now it’s butter tteok. It’s not an easy item to make, and these short, intense trends coming from social media keep piling up—I’m worried about how to cope. (Bakery owner in his 60s)

As the Du-zzonku craze wanes, consumers have moved from spring-greens bibimbap to butter tteok, and the buying frenzy shows no signs of stopping. Retailers and small businesses are rushing to add butter tteok to their menus to keep up with demand.

Butter tteok is a dessert believed to have originated in Shanghai. It’s made by mixing glutinous rice flour with tapioca starch, then adding milk and butter before baking. The result is a chewy interior with a toasty, nutty richness. Though it’s called tteok (rice cake), its texture and shape are more donut-ish than traditional rice cake.

Once consumers latched onto it, distributors jumped in. Paris Croissant Corp.’s bakery brand Fashion Five recently launched a butter jjondeuk tteok, and Ediya Coffee started selling condensed-milk–drizzled butter jjondeuk mochi last month.

Thanks to social media buzz, butter tteok has replaced the Du-zzonku that dominated earlier this year. Influencers sharing recipes and store recommendations helped fuel the trend, and retailers expect other cafes and bakeries to roll out similar items if the craze continues.

Still, small-business owners worry this spike in interest won’t translate into steady revenue. Fresh butter tteok tastes rich and satisfying, but as it sits it can get greasier—so timing and turnover matter a lot for sellers.

Reactions are split, much like they were with Du-zzonku. A 30-something office worker who tried butter tteok said it was pleasantly rich and flavorful when purchased fresh—the buttery aroma and chewy texture made it quite enjoyable.

By contrast, a college student in her 20s who bought butter tteok at a nearby cafe said it tasted oilier than she expected. She added that if it had been freshly made, she probably would have liked it more, but the one she bought seemed a bit old and didn’t live up to her expectations.

Small-business owners’ concerns go beyond taste. During the Du-zzonku craze, some paid premiums for ingredients like kataifi, a Middle Eastern pastry. Now they find themselves scrambling to secure steady supplies of butter.

Dairy products like butter are pricier in Korea than many might expect. On Emart Mall, a 450-gram (about 15.9 oz) package of Seoul Milk butter is listed at 11,580 KRW (approximately $8.69). That price is for thawed stock; refrigerated butter runs about 16,000–17,000 KRW (approximately $12.00–$12.75).

Even bulk butter purchases for bakeries and cafes aren’t cheap. For small vendors, competing with big brands often means getting squeezed into a race to the bottom on price.

Because of that uncertainty, many shop owners hesitate to stock up on ingredients for a trend that might fizzle quickly. They ask whether it’s worth buying extra supplies for what could be another short-lived craze like Du-zzonku.

The 60-something bakery owner said he sometimes wonders whether a bakery should even be making tteok. But when large cafes and bakery chains roll these items out, smaller shops feel they have little choice.

A 40-something cafe owner in Seoul’s Seongdong District added that during the Du-zzonku period she considered buying finished products from suppliers, but prices spiked due to demand. That could mean buying expensive items and selling them at slim margins—especially hard to manage when trends fade quickly and cycles get shorter.