Korean desserts
Korean desserts run from the honeyed rice cakes of the old royal and festival table to some of the most inventive café sweets anywhere. This guide gathers every Korean dessert on DessertCat, from sticky yaksik to towering bingsu.
All 6 Korean desserts
ii. The Korean dessert tradition
Traditional Korean sweets are known collectively as hangwa, alongside the large family of rice cakes called tteok. They were historically eaten at ancestral rites, weddings, birthdays and seasonal festivals, and many are still made in quantity for Chuseok, the autumn harvest festival, and Seollal, the Lunar New Year.
Key ingredients
The classic flavours are honey, sesame and sesame oil, glutinous rice, chestnuts, jujubes (Korean dates), pine nuts, cinnamon and ginger. Brown sugar and soy sauce sometimes appear too: yaksik, a steamed sweet rice studded with chestnuts, jujubes and pine nuts, owes its colour to both. Red-bean paste, shared with China and Japan, fills street snacks.
Techniques
Steaming and pounding give tteok its chew; deep-frying and honey-soaking produce yakgwa; pan-frying gives hotteok, a yeasted pancake filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts, its crisp shell and molten centre. Cast-iron moulds turn batter and red bean into the fish-shaped bungeoppang. Bingsu depends on finely shaved ice, today often frozen milk, for its snow-like texture.
Street food and café culture
Modern Korea has an exceptionally lively dessert scene. Hotteok and bungeoppang are winter street-stall staples; bingsu cafés serve elaborate shaved-ice bowls topped with red bean, injeolmi rice cake, fruit or matcha; and trends move quickly, such as the croffle, croissant dough pressed in a waffle iron. The Choco Pie, a marshmallow-filled chocolate-coated cake, has become a national snack.
Occasions
Rice cakes and hangwa remain central to holidays and family rites, while shaved ice is a summer ritual and street-stall pancakes mark the cold months. Our small collection leans towards sweets that are practical to make at home; we will add more traditional tteok over time.
iii. Common questions
What are traditional Korean desserts?
Traditional Korean sweets include tteok (rice cakes), yakgwa (honey cookies), yaksik (sweet rice with chestnuts and jujubes), sikhye (a sweet rice drink) and sujeonggwa (cinnamon and ginger punch). On DessertCat, yaksik is the best place to start.
What is the sticky Korean sesame dessert?
Several Korean sweets fit that description. Yaksik is a sticky sweet rice dish flavoured with sesame oil and honey, while hotteok is a chewy pancake filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and often sesame seeds; there are also sesame-coated rice cakes and sesame brittle called kkangjeong. See our yaksik and hotteok pages.
What is bingsu?
Bingsu is Korean shaved ice, traditionally topped with sweet red beans (patbingsu) and now made with very fine shaved milk ice and toppings such as fruit, rice cake, condensed milk and matcha. It is a classic summer café dessert.
What is hotteok?
Hotteok is a Korean street-food pancake made from a yeasted dough stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts, then pressed flat and fried. The sugar melts into a hot syrup inside a crisp, chewy shell.
Is the Choco Pie Korean?
The Choco Pie as most people know it is a Korean confection from the Orion company, though it was inspired by similar marshmallow cakes sold in the United States. It is now one of South Korea's best-known snacks and is exported worldwide.