I tried making Dubai chewy cookies. Did I bite off more than I could chew?

From left, a Dubai chewy cookie from the first cafe visited, one from Cafe Pepper and a homemade version. [WOO JI-WON]

[GIVE IT A GO]
 
I am sitting on an absurd amount of power right now. Not two. Not five. But 15.
 
I have 15 Dubai chewy cookies.
 
If you are unfamiliar with the cookie’s insane popularity, this might sound confusing. But in Korea right now, the cookie, also known as “Dujjonku” — a portmanteau of “Dubai” and the Korean words for “chewy” and “cookie” — is power.
 
With its extravagant price and near-impossible availability, the cookie has become a tongue-in-cheek symbol of power, with anyone who manages to get one considered “powerful.”
 
Which then raises the question: How did I manage to secure so much?
 
I am a self-made queen. I made the power myself.
 
And no, it was not as easy as it sounds. As everyone rushes to get a bite of a 6,000 won ($4) cookie, ingredients are becoming scarce and prices are jumping, much like Tiffany bracelets that somehow get more expensive every year. Some cookies now cross the 10,000 won mark for a treat no bigger than half of my fist.
 
The popularity is obvious in how widely they are sold. Beef short rib soup restaurants sell them. The fried chicken place in my neighborhood sells them. Even fancy hotels have joined the frenzy, with the Fairmont Ambassador Seoul offering three for 25,000 won.
 

People donate blood at the Korean Red Cross’s Incheon center, where Dubai chewy cookies are offered to donors as a token of appreciation. [YONHAP]

 
And people buy them desperately, some even giving blood for them — literally. Young people rushed to donation centers on Tuesday when the Korean Red Cross launched a one-day giveaway with the cookie for the first 50 donors.
 
But I did not return to the kitchen after two years — or three, if we only count human food — just to feel powerful by hoarding over a dozen of these ridiculously popular cookies. I had something I wanted to test, for myself and for the public.
 
With ingredient prices doubling, and pistachios seeing a nearly 10-fold increase, many sellers insist there is barely any profit left once costs are factored in. The issue has become a point of contention for both customers and makers. One cafe owner even said on Instagram that they would no longer be selling the cookie after an intense dispute broke out when a customer criticized a price increase to 7,000 won.
 
I had to see for myself whether the claims were really the case. Thanks to me, you do not have to spend 600 million won to find out whether making them at home is cheaper. (That math follows Dubai chewy cookie logic, where prices are so high you simply add extra zeros without explanation.)
 

My Dubai chewy cookies are stacked. [WOO JI-WON]

 
For those who want a quick answer, depending on how you price my hourly wage, yes, the cookie does leave a margin of profit if sold at over 6,500 won. At 5,500 won, I would say the stores are mostly doing charity and customers should be grateful to be feasting at such an affordable price.
 
But the most important takeaway of this experiment, for me personally, is that I will not be spending another 60,000 won (or 600 million won, according to Dujjonku math) making or buying this chewy cookie again. That alone makes the whole thing a success.
Know your enemy
 
They say you have to know your enemy to win a battle. Although I had already eaten some 10 Dubai chocolates from different cafes before, I went on a proper hunt again for this experiment.
 
One popular place in Songpa District was set to open at 11 a.m. Blogs said it was “pretty chill,” so I showed up at 11:20 a.m. That was a big mistake. All takeout stock was sold out.
 

A bakery employee packages two Dubai chewy cookies from a tray kept behind a counter. [WOO JI-WON]

 
Desperate to secure something, I searched more blogs and found another place. It seemed like they had recently hopped onto the trend. I will not name this place, so let’s just call it the first cafe for clarity.
 
Inside, the worker eyed me as if he already knew I was there for the cookie. His body was half-turned, ready to retrieve the cookies hidden deep in the kitchen like diamonds in a mine.
 
When asked how many I wanted, I panicked and said two, even though I meant to buy one. They were 6,500 won each. There went 130 million won.
 
My next stop was the famous Cafe Pepper, scheduled to open at noon. After the earlier trauma, every crowd made me nervous. Thankfully, there were only seven groups ahead of me at 11:40 a.m.
 

A man earned praise online as “a true romantic” after he said in an interview with JTBC, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, that he waited in line for an hour and a half to buy Dubai chewy cookies for his girlfriend. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
What stood out was the number of solo men in line. Modern-day romantics. These days, the internet suggests, this is how people prove their love. Because Dujjonku is notoriously hard to get and often requires long hours of waiting, posts bragging about partners who were able to secure them have become part of the spectacle.
 
At noon sharp, the doors opened. Inside were two full mountains of cookies. Unlike many other shops with purchase limits, here you could acquire as much power as you wanted.
 
But it was the couple in front of me who reached peak authority. The boyfriend said “Grab them” and the girlfriend took eight without hesitation. True power and true love.
 

Many customers stand in line outside Cafe Pepper in Songpa District, southern Seoul, to buy Dubai chewy cookies on Jan. 18. [WOO JI-WON]

 
I bought one for 5,500 won — average price. When I walked out, people in line were clearly checking how many I bought. Relax. I left some for you.
My own ‘Culinary Class Wars’
 
When I got home, I ate one of the two cookies from the first cafe and started analyzing what I should make.
 
The shell was thin. The pistachio spread felt sandy and dry. Mine needed a thinner marshmallow shell and a much gooier pistachio filling, with pistachio that actually tasted like pistachio.
 
But getting the ingredients was the real challenge.
 

The ingredients for Dubai chewy cookies that I spent 60,000 won ($40) and a total of five hours sourcing [WOO JI-WON]

 
I needed 310 grams (11 ounces) of marshmallows, 46 grams of unsalted butter, 31 grams of cocoa powder, 15 grams of skim milk powder, 200 grams of kadayif, 66 grams of unsalted butter, 88 grams of chocolate, 3 grams of salt and 228 grams of pistachios, in case anyone wants my recipe.
 
On Thursday night, I opened the online shopping platform Coupang, confident and naive, only to discover that most of the essentials were completely sold out.
 
It was not entirely hopeless, though. There were alternatives.
 
There was no skim milk powder, so I settled for vending milk powder. Kadayif was nowhere to be found — unless one was willing to pay 34,900 won for 500 grams, with delivery set for next month. I opted instead for the only available alternative, a 200-gram package of pheni, a close substitute with a similarly mild, neutral flavor, though it carries a slightly more toasted note. It cost 12,500 won and came with next-day delivery — though the price had already doubled from just two weeks earlier.
 
Because I was buying substitutions, I read reviews obsessively. Thanks to the cookie craze, reviewers generously reported whether each product worked as a substitute.
 
Despite a two-hour online hunt, my cart contained only five items. There were absolutely zero marshmallows available, so I had to buy twisted rainbow marshmallows the next day. The total damage was 42,080 won.
 

Pistachios and pistachio spreads are sold out on Coupang. [WOO JI-WON]

 
Getting my hands on pistachios was just hopeless. Determined to make the pistachio spread from scratch — not for better flavor, but because pistachio spread had become the most inflated component, with one 500-gram package selling for 94,800 won — I spent hours searching for unsalted pistachios. They technically existed, but were either to arrive sometime next month or priced like investment assets.
 
After three hours of digging on Naver, I finally found a cheaper option, 500 grams for 18,800 won. Including packaging I bought at Daiso for the presentation, this brings the grand total to some 62,000 won.
A tragedy in three parts
 
The first task was shelling pistachios. We have six hands in this house: mine and my parents’. So the job took about 30 minutes. By the end, though, my thumbnails were in great pain.
 

I measure ingredients down to the gram to make Dubai chewy cookies. [WOO JI-WON]

 
Next came measuring. As someone with slow and clumsy cooking hands, this took 30 minutes and most of my patience.
 
Then it was time to roast and grind the pistachios. Grinding took forever because my sous chef mom refused to allow even small pieces to remain. I could have closed my eyes and pretended they were there for extra crunch, but the sous chef did not. After another 30 minutes, the chunky pistachio paste was ready.
 

I melt colorful marshmallows with butter after failing to find plain white marshmallows. [WOO JI-WON]

 
I then melted marshmallows and mixed them with cocoa powder to create a chewy chocolate marshmallow shell. This was the most fun part, by the way. I then placed it on parchment paper to cool. This later turned out to be a mistake — but more on that later.
 
It was time to bake my kadayif/pheni. It took 40 minutes to turn them crispy and brown. Until then, the vibes were still good. This was going to be alright, I thought. Then I mixed the baked pheni with the pistachio paste and added white chocolate to make the spread.
 
The recipe then surprisingly called for 3 grams of salt. Three grams looked like too much salt. But I had to trust the recipe. This is where the first tragedy occurred.
 

I photograph the moment after adding salt to the pistachio paste, instinctively feeling the need to document it. [WOO JI-WON]

 
After mixing all, I took a spoonful, and it was salty. It shouldn’t be. So I dumped in all the remaining grams of white chocolate I owned into the paste. It was still salty, but I convinced myself that salt sometimes enhances sweetness and chose to move on.
 

I shape a pistachio ball, which later resembles a small hedgehog after 25 minutes in the freezer. [WOO JI-WON]

 
I portioned out 36 to 38 grams per piece using an ice cream scoop, leaving about fifteen balls. Then they went into the fridge for 25 minutes, as instructed. This was failure No. 2.
 
When I took it out, the balls were rock solid. Trying to roll them was impossible, with sharp strands of kadayif stabbing my hands. I waited another 40 minutes until I could squash them.
 
Now it was time for the marshmallow. When I tried to remove it from the parchment paper, it refused to comply, stuck like cement. I later found out that many failed attempts online had run into the same mistake.
 

I put all my strength into peeling sticky marshmallows from parchment paper. [WOO JI-WON]

 
I panicked, yes. But I had my sous chef to calm me down. Using olive oil also helped a little, too. Thankfully, I was able to peel it off with temporary arm paralysis.
 
After three hours, it was time to wrap each pistachio ball in a marshmallow. Some tore. Some were far too thick. At that point, I abandoned perfection and developed a deep respect for cafes that somehow achieve impossibly thin marshmallow shells.
 

I wrap the pistachio ball in melted marshmallow. [WOO JI-WON]

 
I then coated everything generously in powder, hoping it would hide the dents and perhaps fix the crooked shape. At 7:14 p.m., after over four hours in the kitchen, I was finally done.
Verdict
 
It was time for the moment of truth. I lined mine up against the ones from the first cafe and Cafe Pepper. Size-wise, they were all similar.
 

I successfully wrapped the marshmallow around the pistachio paste ball. [WOO JI-WON]

 
When it came to texture, Cafe Pepper clearly won. Even eight hours after purchase, it was still soft. The Dujjonku from the first cafe, on the other hand, fully lived up to what many call stone Dujjonku. It was rock solid. Mine was in between.
 
In terms of texture and taste, Cafe Pepper was more gooey and crunchy, with a subtle coffee note. The first cafe’s cookie was just sandy.
 
As for my Dujjonku, though, I’ll defer judgment and quote my colleague Kim Joo-yeon verbatim, in the interest of fairness.
 
“Even better than some Dujjongku I tasted in stores! The filling is so creamy and chocolaty and luxurious, which carries the whole thing. The hint of salt is excellent, too — a nice contrast against the richness.
 
“The marshmallow shell is a bit thicker than the ones sold in stores, but it gives a nice chewy texture. The grains in the pistachio cream filling are definitely smaller than the ones I’ve had before, so it’s less crunchy. I prefer the larger, crunchier kadayif pieces I tasted in the stores (sorry, Jiwon!)”
 

A group of Dubai chewy chocolates, their dents and flaws covered with a dusting of chocolate powder [WOO JI-WON]

 
Now for the price. I spent about 60,000 won and made 15 cookies. That comes out to roughly 4,000 won per cookie. Not bad, if you ignore the four hours of labor — five hours including dishwashing — and at least five additional hours spent hunting down ingredients. Purely in terms of ingredients, they are cheaper than Cafe Pepper’s 5,500 won and the first cafe’s 6,500 won.
 
Economies of scale would also play a role, with ingredient costs falling as production volumes increase.
 
Considering that, pricing anything under 7,000 won feels fair. Anything above that, I consider quite a rip-off, no matter how premium the ingredients claim to be.
 
But I recommend making it yourself if you are someone who has already spent a billion won on store-bought Dujjonku. Not because you will save money, but because, most likely, you will get so sick of it while making it that you will completely lose your appetite for it.
 

I gift three Dubai chewy cookies to a friend who biked 30 minutes at night to receive edible gold. [WOO JI-WON]

 
If the prospect of making them at home sounds overwhelming, taking a baking class is also an option. Baking classes for Dujjonku are now offered at around 50,000 won for 10 cookies per person, which does not feel unreasonable given the cost of ingredients.
 
Have a wonderful time, because I will not be buying these anymore, and I certainly won’t make them again.

BY WOO JI-WON [[email protected]]