Its shape resembles a half moon and it is a representative rice cake of Korean holidays and traditional culture.

It is a type of tteok, small rice cakes, and variety of fillings are used—some include red bean paste, toasted sesame seeds, and chestnuts.

Songpyeon is traditionally eaten during the Korean autumn harvest festival, Chuseok, where it is often prepared by families at home.

[2] Songpyeons are half-moon shaped rice cakes that typically contain sweet or semi-sweet fillings, such as soybeans, cowpeas, chestnuts, jujubes, dates, red beans, sesame seeds, or honey.

[2] Another Korean anecdote says that the person who makes beautifully-shaped songpyeon will meet a good spouse or give birth to a beautiful baby.

[8] Songpyeon is made by kneading rice flour with salt and hot water until it is smooth in order to create a dough.

The rice cakes are steamed on top of pine needles for about 20–30 minutes and then rinsed with cold water in order to maintain their chewy texture.

[3] As pine trees also produce large amounts of phytoncide, this effectively kills germs, and helps avoid spoiling due to the presence of terpene.

[7] According to the Dongui Bogam (동의보감; 東醫寶鑑), the most well-known Joseon medical book, the pine needles are also said to have medicinal effects on the food.

[7] The songpyeon in this region are typically flat with ridges from pressing down using fingers and in Gangneung, people leave their handprints on the rice cakes.

Brown is created using cinnamon; pink, by using strawberry or omija syrup; green, by using mugwort; and yellow, by using gardenia seeds.