Dalgona is having a resurgence of late, but no thanks to TikTok. In fact, from its appearance in Netflix’s current top streaming series, Squid Game. For those who haven’t quite caught on yet, Squid Game is a survival drama, where 456 people compete to win 45.6 billion won (about 52 million SGD) by playing traditional Korean children’s games, only with a dark twist– you lose, you die.

In the hit Korean show, we see it in its original form – the Dalgona candy. And no, it didn’t originate from 2020’s whipped coffee. It’s actually a Korean childhood candy popular in the 1970-80s, in line with Squid Game’s childhood nostalgia theme. Street vendors would stamp patterns or shapes on the wafer-thin honeycomb candy, and kids would challenge themselves to eat around the shape; similar to its feature in Squid Game’s episode 3. 

If you’d like to challenge yourself to the task (but without its dire consequences if you fail), here’s a step-by-step on how you can DIY some Dalgona candy at home.

First, you’ll need to gather the following to make the candy with: 

• ​​Stainless steel ladle
• A chopstick (or anything to stir your mixture with)
• Non-stick baking sheet or a flat pan lined with parchment paper
• Any object with a smooth, round bottom that’s about 4 to 5 inches in diameter (aka your press)
• Cookie cutter
• Lollipop sticks
• 1.5 tablespoons sugar (white or brown)
• 1/16 teaspoon baking soda

1. Add your sugar to the ladle, and hold it over low heat
2. When the sugar begins to melt at the sides, have your chopstick ready, and start stirring. You should aim to get a lump-free liquid. If it starts to smoke, bring the ladle away from the heat to allow it to cool before returning it to the heat.
3. Once your sugar is melted, bring it away from the heat and add in the baking soda
4. Stir quickly and vigorously until the baking soda is completely dissolved. Bring it near the heat if you need, but keep an eye on it, because the mixture will froth and puff up and burn if you’re not careful.  
5. Keep stirring until the mixture turns a light caramel-colour. 
6. Once you’ve gotten it to the ideal colour, pour it out onto your non-stick surface. Quickly put down the lollipop stick onto your mixture while the mixture is still wet, so it’ll stick.
7. Let it cool for about 10 seconds, then lightly press down with the press, and do it as many times as needed until it’s at its desired thickness. Make sure the Dalgona mixture is wide enough to stamp with your cookie cutter comfortably.
8. Quickly stamp it with your cookie cutter, but don’t be too heavy-handed with it lest you punch through the mixture and take away the whole point of the activity. You still want to attempt to eat away the surrounding candy don’t you?

And you’re done! Now, it’s the moment of truth – do you advance or do you face an unthinkable penalty?