Dubai Chewy Cookie Calories (2026): The Honest Breakdown of What's Inside

Updated: September 2026

Dubai chewy cookie calories land at roughly 400 to 600 kcal per cookie for a typical Korean-style one weighing 40 to 60 grams, according to Korean doctors quoted in January 2026. That is about 1.5 to 2 bowls of white rice. Most of it comes from pistachio cream, butter-fried kataifi and marshmallow.

TL;DR
– Typical range: 400–600 kcal per cookie (Korea Herald and Hankyung, citing Korean doctors, January 2026)
– Why so high: pistachio cream, kataifi fried in butter, marshmallow and white chocolate, packed into a small, dense ball
– In the UAE: Mukbang Shows sells Chef Nouel Catis’s Dubai Chewy Cookie at AED 40 a box, but no official calorie figure is published, so ask the branch for the label

Somewhere between 400 and 600 kcal for one cookie. The Korea Herald and Hankyung both quoted Korean family medicine doctors giving that range in January 2026, when the cookie was at the peak of its craze in Korea. Professor Lee Yu-jung of Korea University Guro Hospital put it at 1.5 to 2 times a bowl of white rice.

The range is wide because nobody makes it the same way. A 40 g cookie with a thin shell sits at the bottom. A 60 g cookie with extra filling and white chocolate sits at the top. The Korea Times puts typical weight at 40 to 60 grams.

Some Korean food blogs estimate lower, around 280 to 350 kcal for a 60 g cookie. Those are home estimates, not measured figures, so we would plan around the doctors’ 400–600 number and treat anything lower as a bonus.

What you will not find is an official nutrition label from the big Korean chains or from most UAE sellers. We found none published for CU’s version, and Mukbang Shows does not publish one for the Chef Nouel Catis box. If you are counting, ask for the box label.

Because every ingredient is calorie-dense and there is almost no air in it. A normal cookie is partly air and flour. A Dubai chewy cookie is a tight ball of nuts, fat, sugar and fried pastry.

Here is where the calories come from, ingredient by ingredient.

Pistachio cream

The filling’s base is pistachio cream: ground pistachios, usually with sugar and oil. Pistachios on their own are about 560 kcal per 100 g, according to USDA FoodData Central. Sweetened pistachio spreads are usually richer still. This is the single biggest calorie source in the filling.

Kataifi fried in butter

Kataifi (also spelled kadaif, the shredded pastry used in kunafa) is toasted in butter until it turns crisp and golden. The pastry soaks up the butter. It gives the cookie its crunch, and it adds both fat and refined flour.

Marshmallow shell

The chewy outside is usually melted marshmallow, sometimes with butter and cocoa worked in. Marshmallow is mostly sugar. It adds the stretch that makes people call this a mochi cookie, and a big share of the sugar.

White chocolate (in some recipes)

The Korea Times lists white chocolate in the filling of some versions. White chocolate is sugar, milk solids and cocoa butter, so it adds more fat and more sugar.

Cocoa powder

The dusting on the outside is unsweetened cocoa. It is a small amount, and the least of your worries.

Version	Weight	Calories	Source	Where
Typical Korean-style dujjonku	40–60 g	400–600 kcal	Korean doctors via Korea Herald, Hankyung	Korea
Home-recipe estimates	~60 g	280–350 kcal	Korean blogs, unverified	Korea
Casa de Flores box of 4	~60 g a piece	Not published	Casa de Flores product page	UAE delivery, AED 65
Chef Nouel Catis box at Mukbang Shows	Not published	Not published, ask for the label	Mukbang Shows	5 UAE branches, AED 40
Gato Cake Studio single	Not published	Not published	Korea Herald on price	Dubai, AED 29 each

The honest summary: nobody selling it in the UAE publishes calories yet. The best public figure is the Korean doctors’ 400–600 kcal range, so budget for that.

Per serving, they are in the same ballpark, but the cookie is one small portion while a Dubai chocolate bar is usually shared. The filling is the same idea in both: pistachio and kataifi. The difference is the shell: milk chocolate for the bar, marshmallow for the chewy cookie.

A whole Dubai chocolate bar eaten alone can easily beat one chewy cookie. A couple of squares of the bar will be less. Wikipedia’s page on Dubai chocolate covers the original, and our Dubai chocolate guide has the UAE angle.

For a sense of scale, 400–600 kcal is what the Korean doctors compared to 1.5 to 2 bowls of white rice. It is a full dessert, not a mid-afternoon nibble.

Our honest take: treat one Dubai chewy cookie like a slice of rich cake. Have it after a meal, share it if you have eaten a lot, and do not eat three because they are small. The size fools people. A 50 g ball that dense carries a lot.

If you want a lighter Korean dessert, a shared bingsu is usually the easier call, because most of it is shaved milk ice. Our guide to Korean desserts in Dubai covers the options.

About a fifth to a third of a standard 2,000 kcal reference day. Food labels use 2,000 kcal as the reference intake for an average adult, so one 400–600 kcal cookie is 20–30% of it. For comparison, a typical main course at a restaurant is often in the same range.

That does not make it off-limits. It just means the cookie is a meal-sized treat in a small package. Plan it like one:
– After a light meal: a whole cookie is reasonable.
– After a big meal: half is plenty. If you just finished all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, share it with the table.
– As an afternoon snack: it will carry you to dinner, so eat a lighter dinner.

The mistake people make is eating two because each one looks small. A 50 g cookie is about the weight of two small eggs, but far denser in calories.

Yes. Sugar comes from three places at once: the marshmallow shell, the sweetened pistachio cream, and white chocolate where it is used. The kataifi and pistachio add fat rather than sugar, which is why the cookie feels so rich rather than just sweet.

No UAE seller we found publishes a sugar figure, so the label is again your friend. If you are watching sugar for health reasons, half a cookie with unsweetened tea is the sensible order. If you are diabetic, talk to your doctor before treating it as an everyday snack.

Check three things: the serving size, whether the numbers are per 100 g or per piece, and the ingredients list.

Per 100 g or per piece? Many labels give calories per 100 g. If a cookie weighs 60 g, multiply the per-100 g figure by 0.6 to get the real number for one cookie.
Weight per piece. If the box gives a total weight, divide it by the number of cookies. Casa de Flores, for example, states roughly 60 g a piece.
Ingredients order. Ingredients are listed by weight, largest first. If sugar or marshmallow comes before pistachio, you are eating more shell than filling.
Gelatin and allergens. The same list tells you whether gelatin is used and whether nuts, wheat, milk, egg or soy are present.

If a seller cannot show you a label, ask what the cookie weighs. That alone gets you most of the way to an estimate.

You can make it lighter, but not light. The ingredients that carry the calories are the same ones that make it taste right. A few changes that home bakers use:

Make them smaller. A 35–40 g cookie instead of 60 g is the biggest single saving, with no change to the recipe.
Toast the kataifi in less butter. Use just enough to crisp it and spread it thin on a tray in the oven, rather than pan-frying it in a pool of butter.
Skip the white chocolate. Many recipes work fine with pistachio cream and kataifi alone.
Use a thinner shell. Less marshmallow dough per cookie means less sugar, although the chew gets less pronounced.

Our honest view: if you want the real experience, buy the proper one and eat half. The home-light version is a different, drier dessert.

Expect tree nuts, gluten and dairy in almost every version, and eggs and soy in many. The one full allergen label we found, from Casa de Flores in Dubai, lists wheat, eggs, soy, milk and pistachio, and says it may contain peanuts and other tree nuts.

By ingredient:
– Tree nuts: pistachio is the whole point of the filling.
– Gluten: kataifi is a wheat pastry.
– Dairy: butter, and white or milk chocolate where used.
– Eggs and soy: common in chocolate, spreads and marshmallow.

If you have a nut allergy, the Dubai chewy cookie is not for you, full stop.

Worth it once in a while, yes. It is a genuinely good dessert. On halal: Chef Nouel Catis’s Dubai Chewy Cookie at Mukbang Shows is 100% halal and made without gelatin. The rest of Mukbang’s menu is 100% halal too: beef and chicken only, no pork and no alcohol at any branch.

For other sellers, check the label. Most Korean-style recipes use marshmallow, and marshmallow normally contains gelatin, so whether a given cookie is halal depends on the gelatin’s source or whether the maker left it out.

Mukbang Shows is the easiest walk-in. It sells Chef Nouel Catis’s Dubai Chewy Cookie at AED 40 a box at all five branches, and you do not need to order food. Chef Nouel Catis is a Filipino pastry chef and the co-creator of Dubai chocolate, profiled by The National. Monte Cookie in Gimpo first made the Korean chewy cookie, and his box is his own version of it.

The five counters:
– JBR: Plaza Level, Bahar 3, Unit P33, The Walk. +971-54-523-1898. Open till 12AM.
– DWTC (Love Mukbang): The Apartments Block A, Sheikh Zayed Road, opposite World Trade Centre metro. +971-54-524-5904. Open till 1AM.
– Deira: Al Ittihad Road, Port Saeed, next to Deira Bus Station. +971-4-886-4494. Open till 1AM.
– Muroor, Abu Dhabi: 547 Sultan Bin Zayed The First Street, Al Danah. +971-50-158-9433. Open till 1AM.
– Electra, Abu Dhabi: Zayed The First Street, behind Sun and Sand Sports. +971-2-564-0446. Open till 1AM.

Honest limitation: Mukbang does not publish weight or calories for the box. If the numbers matter, ask for the label at the counter before you buy.

Other options include Gato Cake Studio in Dubai (AED 29 a single cookie, Al Mina Road and Creek Beach) and Casa de Flores (box of 4 for AED 65, delivered UAE-wide). Gulf News has a wider list.

How to enjoy one without overdoing it

Split it. Cut it in half with a knife. The filling holds together, and half is plenty after dinner.
Make it the dessert. Skip the second sweet.
Pair it with unsweetened tea or black coffee. A sweet drink on top adds a lot.
Share the box. A box makes it easy to eat two without noticing.
Mind your teeth. Hankyung quoted a Kyung Hee University dentistry professor warning that the sticky marshmallow clings to teeth. Rinse or brush afterwards.
Read the label. Calories, allergens and gelatin all vary by maker. Mukbang’s Chef Nouel Catis box is halal and gelatin-free.

In Korean it is 두바이 쫀득쿠키, “Dubai chewy cookie”, nicknamed 두쫀쿠. It takes the Dubai chocolate filling (pistachio cream and toasted kataifi), wraps it in a marshmallow-based chewy shell, and rolls it in cocoa. The texture is closer to a rice cake than a cookie.

It started at Monte Cookie in Gimpo, a bakery founded in August 2024. It went viral after IVE’s Jang Won-young posted one in September 2025. CU sold more than 1.8 million of its Dubai-style chewy rice cakes after an October launch. Paris Baguette Korea sells Dubai chewy balls and tarts at 5,000 to 10,000 won, and Starbucks Korea launched a Dubai Chewy Roll on 30 January 2026.

FAQ

How many calories are in one Dubai chewy cookie?
About 400–600 kcal for a typical 40–60 g Korean-style cookie, according to Korean doctors quoted in January 2026.

How many calories are in the Mukbang Shows box?
Not published. Ask the branch for the box label. The Korean range of 400–600 kcal per cookie is a sensible guide.

What makes it so high in calories?
Pistachio cream, kataifi fried in butter, marshmallow and sometimes white chocolate, all packed into a small, dense ball.

Is it healthier than Dubai chocolate?
Not really. The filling is similar. The cookie is a single portion, which makes it easier to control than a whole bar.

Is it gluten-free?
No. Kataifi is a wheat pastry. Expect gluten, tree nuts and dairy.

How much does it cost in the UAE?
AED 40 a box at Mukbang Shows, AED 29 a single at Gato Cake Studio, and AED 65 for a delivered box of 4 from Casa de Flores.

Dubai chewy cookie calories are high because each one is a small ball of nuts, butter and sugar, roughly 400–600 kcal. Enjoy one and share the box. If you want one tonight, pick up Chef Nouel Catis’s Dubai Chewy Cookie at Mukbang Shows for AED 40.

Dubai Chewy Cookie Calories (2026): The Honest Breakdown of What’s Inside