A Culinary Journey Through Innovation and Tradition
The Year of the Horse has galloped in with an adventurous lineup of Chinese New Year treats that challenge our expectations of festive snacking. Gone are the days when innovation meant simply adding salted egg to everything. This year, Singapore’s bakers and confectioners have pushed boundaries further, creating fusion snacks that marry traditional festive flavors with unexpected contemporary twists.
The Premium Tier: Excellence in Innovation
1. Bak Kwa Kouign Amann – Tiong Bahru Bakery × Kim Joo Guan
Verdict: 8/10
Texture Analysis: This is a masterclass in textural complexity. The kouign amann base delivers the signature experience of a thousand paper-thin layers, each one shatteringly crisp on the outside while maintaining an almost molten butteriness within. As you bite through, there’s an audible crunch followed by a yielding, tender give. The bak kwa integration adds a chewy, slightly resistant quality that provides compelling textural contrast—imagine the satisfying pull of premium jerky meeting the delicate lamination of French pastry.
The caramelization creates glossy, candy-like crisp edges that crack under gentle pressure, while the interior remains pillowy and rich. The interplay between brittle caramel shell, flaky pastry layers, and chewy meat creates a complex mouthfeel that evolves with each bite.
Flavor Profile: This is where sweet meets umami in perfect harmony. The kouign amann brings intense butteriness amplified by burnt sugar notes—that distinctive caramelized sweetness that borders on bittersweet. The Kim Joo Guan bak kwa contributes smoky depth, a subtle char flavor, and savory-sweet meat notes enhanced by the traditional marinade of soy, sugar, and five-spice.
What makes this work is the balance: the bak kwa’s saltiness cuts through the pastry’s richness, preventing it from becoming cloying. There’s complexity in the layering—smoky, sweet, buttery, with hints of char and spice lingering on the palate. It’s decadent without being overwhelming, innovative without being gimmicky.
The Experience: Each bite is an indulgent affair. Best enjoyed warm, when the butter is at its most fragrant and the caramel at its most brittle. This is not a delicate, nibble-in-polite-company snack—it’s messy, rich, and demands your full attention. The portion size is generous, making it ideal for sharing, though you might be reluctant to.
The Solid Performers: Interesting but Imperfect
2. Mala Chiffon with Cheese Cap – The Pine Garden
Verdict: 7/10
Texture Analysis: This defies every expectation of what a chiffon cake should be. Traditional chiffon is ethereally light, almost cloud-like in its airiness. The Pine Garden’s mala version is notably denser—not in a negative way, but with intentional structure that can support the bold flavors and ingredient additions.
The crumb is tender but substantial, with a slight resistance that comes from the addition of chopped cashew nuts. These nuts provide sporadic crunch throughout, like discovering little flavor bombs embedded in the spiced cake. The cheese cap on top is the textural wildcard: torched to create a brûléed surface that cracks gently under a fork, giving way to a molten, creamy layer beneath. The interplay between the warm, slightly oily richness of the cheese and the drier, more porous cake creates moisture balance.
Flavor Profile: This is an assault on the senses—in the most deliberate way possible. The mala spice blend dominates, bringing that characteristic tingling numbness of Sichuan peppercorns combined with chili heat. It builds gradually: the first bite might seem mild, but by the third or fourth, your palate is fully engaged with the complex spice profile.
The cashews add nutty sweetness and richness, providing momentary respite from the heat. The cheese cap is crucial—it’s not just decorative but functional, offering cooling creaminess and mild dairy sweetness that tempers the aggressive spices. There’s also a subtle savory undertone throughout, almost like the cake has absorbed the essence of a mala hotpot.
This isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re expecting traditional cake sweetness, you’ll be shocked. But for adventurous eaters who enjoy savory baked goods, this is compelling. The heat lingers pleasantly rather than painfully, and the complexity of flavors reveals itself over time.
The Experience: Eating this feels like participating in a culinary experiment. It challenges your assumptions about what dessert should be. Best served at room temperature with unsweetened tea to cleanse the palate between bites. Not something you’ll polish off alone—this is a conversation starter, meant to be shared and debated over.
3. Pork Floss Shio Pan – Tiong Bahru Bakery
Verdict: 6/10
Texture Analysis: The shio pan base captures the current Japanese-inspired baking trend—soft, pillowy, with that distinctive milk bread tenderness. The crumb is fine and uniform, with a gentle, yielding quality that compresses easily under bite pressure. It’s enriched dough, so there’s noticeable butteriness in the mouthfeel.
Inside, the creamy cheese blend adds luxurious, smooth richness—thick enough to coat the mouth but not so heavy it becomes cloying. The pork floss on top provides the most interesting textural element: airy, feather-light shreds that dissolve almost instantly on the tongue while contributing savory depth. However, there’s textural monotony here—everything is soft. Missing is a contrasting element, perhaps a crust with more bite or a crispy topping.
Flavor Profile: This is an exercise in rich, comforting flavors. The shio pan itself is subtly sweet with prominent dairy notes—think butter and milk combined. The cheese blend amplifies this creaminess, adding mild saltiness and a slight tang that prevents the filling from being one-dimensional.
The Kim Joo Guan pork floss is the flavor anchor, bringing concentrated umami, sweetness from the traditional preparation, and a hint of that distinctive porky richness. The floss has been slightly sweetened in the traditional style, creating a sweet-savory dynamic that’s quintessentially Asian.
The problem is balance—or rather, the excess of richness. Butter, cheese, and pork floss together create a flavor profile that, while pleasant, becomes heavy quickly. There’s no acidic element or brightness to cut through the fat and dairy. After a few bites, palate fatigue sets in.
The Experience: This reads as a safe, crowd-pleasing option that plays it a bit too safe. It’s indulgent and satisfying in the moment but lacks the memorable quality that would make you crave it again. Best shared with multiple people and paired with strong, unsweetened coffee or tea.
4. ‘Mao Shan Wang’ Osmanthus Blossom Dome – Goodwood Park Hotel
Verdict: 6/10
Texture Analysis: This is elegant patisserie work with clear textural stratification. The durian mousse is the star layer—impossibly creamy, almost custard-like in its smoothness, with that characteristic dense richness that premium ‘Mao Shan Wang’ durian brings. It has body and weight, coating the palate completely.
The longan jelly provides crucial textural contrast: it’s delicately set with a gentle wobble, offering a refreshing, cool burst that’s almost cleansing. The jelly has that characteristic slight resistance before it yields, releasing trapped goji berries and osmanthus flowers. The osmanthus mousse is lighter and airier than the durian layer, with a whipped quality that provides lift.
However, there’s an issue with temperature and structural integrity—as the dessert sits, the layers begin to blur together, losing their distinct textural identities. Served immediately from refrigeration, it’s beautifully layered; left at room temperature too long, it becomes a homogeneous, if still delicious, puddle.
Flavor Profile: This is a study in contrasts that doesn’t always harmonize. The ‘Mao Shan Wang’ durian is potent, pungent, intensely rich with that sulfurous, custard-like complexity that durian lovers crave. It’s sweet, slightly bitter, with an almost fermented depth.
The longan jelly and goji berries bring gentle fruity sweetness—delicate, floral, refreshing. The osmanthus adds perfumed notes, that distinctive apricot-like fragrance that’s both floral and slightly peachy. These lighter elements are meant to provide relief from the durian’s intensity.
The challenge is that durian is such a dominant flavor that it tends to overpower the subtler notes. The osmanthus and longan fight for recognition but often get lost. For durian enthusiasts, this might be ideal—maximum durian with occasional floral brightness. For those less passionate about the fruit, the balance feels off.
The Experience: This is refined, hotel-caliber dessert work that prioritizes sophistication over bold fusion experimentation. It’s pretty to look at, pleasant to eat, but doesn’t necessarily justify its place on a “unique” snacks list—it’s more traditionally indulgent than boundary-pushing. Best enjoyed by dedicated durian lovers with tea.
The Experimental Middle Ground: Bold Ideas, Mixed Execution
5. Lo Hei (Yusheng) Cookies – The Pine Garden
Verdict: 4/10
Texture Analysis: These cookies present an immediate textural puzzle. The base is a standard butter cookie—crumbly, short, with that characteristic sandy texture that dissolves readily in the mouth. There’s no chewiness, just clean breakage and melting.
Scattered throughout and on top are the preserved melon strips (both green and red), which provide unexpected chewy pockets. These candied elements have a slightly crystallized exterior that’s tacky to the touch, with an interior that’s sticky and dense. The white sesame seeds add occasional crunch, but they’re too sparse to provide consistent textural interest.
The plum sauce inclusion creates moisture pockets that make the cookie texture uneven—some bites are drier and more crumbly, others are almost paste-like where the sauce has soaked into the dough. This inconsistency is distracting rather than interesting.
Flavor Profile: This is where things get genuinely weird. The cookies genuinely taste like yusheng—which is simultaneously impressive and off-putting. The plum sauce brings sweet-tart-tangy notes with a distinct fruity funk. The five-spice contributes warm, aromatic complexity: star anise, clove, cinnamon, creating almost savory undertones.
The kumquat adds citrus brightness with characteristic bitterness from the peel. The preserved melon strips are intensely sweet, almost artificially so, with that distinctive candied fruit flavor. White sesame provides nutty depth.
Together, these create a flavor profile that’s authentically yusheng-adjacent—sweet, savory, tangy, aromatic, all competing for dominance in a tiny cookie. The problem is that yusheng works as a fresh, cold dish with contrasting textures and temperatures. In cookie form, these flavors become concentrated and muddled, lacking the fresh vegetables and raw fish that would provide balance.
Some tasters noted similarity to pig’s ear biscuits (the Chinese crackers, not actual pig ears), which makes sense given the sweet-spicy-aromatic profile. But while pig’s ear biscuits are intentionally designed with these flavors, here it feels accidental.
The Experience: This is a conversation piece, not a crowd-pleaser. First-time tasters universally react with surprise—sometimes delight, often confusion. The flavors “grow on you” as described in the original review, but that’s ambiguous praise. It means they’re acquired, challenging, requiring mental adjustment rather than being immediately appealing.
These work best as a novelty item to try once, discuss extensively, and probably not repurchase. They succeed as a concept more than as an actual snack you’d crave.
6. Sakura Ebi Laksa Cookies – La Levain
Verdict: 4/10
Texture Analysis: These cookies have a crisp, brittle quality rather than the tender crumbliness of butter cookies. They snap cleanly when broken, suggesting a dough with less fat or more structure from the savory ingredients. The sakura ebi (dried shrimp) are visible throughout, providing sporadic crunch, though they’ve softened somewhat in the baking process so they’re not as crispy as fresh dried shrimp would be.
The laksa leaves are pulverized into the dough, so they don’t provide distinct textural elements but rather contribute to the overall slight graininess of the crumb. There’s a subtle oiliness to the mouthfeel, likely from the coconut and the natural oils in the shrimp.
The texture is fine but unremarkable—functional rather than exciting. There’s no particular textural element that makes these stand out.
Flavor Profile: These are aggressively savory with genuine laksa-adjacent flavors that are simultaneously impressive and questionable. The sakura ebi dominates, bringing intense umami, that distinctive dried seafood funk, and subtle sweetness that quality dried shrimp possesses. There’s brininess, almost an oceanic quality.
The laksa leaves (Vietnamese coriander or polygonum) contribute their characteristic peppery bite and slight mintiness, along with earthy, herbaceous notes. The coconut adds fragrance and subtle sweetness, creating that creamy, aromatic quality essential to laksa. The chili padi brings legitimate heat—sharp, bright, building gradually.
Put together, these genuinely evoke laksa in the most surreal way. There’s the seafood essence, the herbal complexity, the coconut richness, the chili heat. What’s missing is moisture, richness, the soup base that makes laksa comforting. In dry cookie form, these flavors are concentrated and somewhat harsh.
The experience of eating something that tastes like laksa but has cookie texture creates cognitive dissonance. Your brain expects one thing (sweet cookie) but receives another (spicy, savory, seafood-forward flavors). It’s technically well-executed but conceptually challenging.
The Experience: These are polarizing. Adventurous eaters might appreciate the novelty and the genuine flavor accuracy. Traditional snackers will likely recoil. They’re best approached as a savory snack rather than a cookie—think of them as flavored crackers rather than sweet treats, and they make more sense.
Pairing with beer might actually work better than tea. These are the kind of thing you serve to foodie friends who appreciate culinary experiments, not to your traditional relatives expecting pineapple tarts.
The Misses: Interesting Concepts, Underwhelming Execution
7. Kopi Siew Dai Cookies – Mdm Ling Bakery
Verdict: 3/10
Texture Analysis: These deliver classic butter cookie texture—crumbly, sandy, short. They dissolve readily in the mouth with that characteristic melt that well-made butter cookies provide. The crumb is fine and uniform, breaking cleanly with no graininess or pockets of unincorporated ingredients.
However, there’s a slight dryness to the finish, likely from the coffee powder inclusion which can absorb moisture. The cookies lack the moist tenderness that the best butter cookies possess—that quality where they’re simultaneously crisp and tender, holding together but melting effortlessly.
Texturally, these are competent but unexciting. There’s nothing here to compensate for the aggressive flavor profile—no chocolate chips for contrast, no nuts for crunch, no surprise elements. Just straightforward, dry, crumbly cookies.
Flavor Profile: This is where these cookies become problematic. The “kopi siew dai” (coffee with less sugar) flavoring is uncompromising—intensely bitter, robustly coffee-forward, with minimal sweetness to balance. While the original review notes this might not be everyone’s “cup of coffee,” that’s understated. These are genuinely bitter.
Quality kopi siew dai has a certain charm—the strong, slightly burnt robustness of dark-roasted coffee beans with just enough sweetness to take the edge off. In cookie form, what you get is concentrated coffee bitterness with the sugar content of a cookie (substantial) fighting against the coffee’s natural astringency.
There’s a burnt undertone, possibly from the coffee roast or from caramelization during baking. The butter provides some richness, but it’s not enough to soften the aggressive coffee profile. The aftertaste is persistently bitter, lingering unpleasantly.
For hardcore black coffee drinkers who genuinely prefer their coffee unsweetened, these might appeal. For most people, they’re overpowering and one-dimensional.
The Experience: These are a lesson in how a clever concept doesn’t always translate to pleasant eating. Kopi culture is deeply ingrained in Singapore, so the idea makes sense culturally. But execution matters, and here the balance is off.
If you genuinely love extremely bitter flavors and want your cookies to double as caffeine delivery vehicles, these serve a purpose. For traditional CNY snacking, they’re too intense, too bitter, lacking the joy and indulgence that festive treats should provide.
8. Bak Kwa and Cheese Scone – Joe & Dough
Verdict: 3/10
Texture Analysis: This is where the most significant disappointment lies. Traditional British scones—when done well—have a specific texture: tender and flaky, with a slight crumble, but still moist enough to not require excessive amounts of jam and cream. They should have some structure, a slight resistance, then yield to reveal a fluffy interior.
These scones are described as “soft and underwhelming,” which suggests they’ve missed the mark entirely. Soft scones are usually the result of overworking the dough or too much moisture, creating a texture closer to muffin or cake than proper scone. The baked exterior should provide some resistance; here, it sounds like they’re uniformly soft throughout.
The bak kwa pieces add chewy pockets, and the Emmental on top presumably creates some textural interest with melted cheese stretch and slight crispy edges where it’s browned. But these elements can’t save fundamentally flawed base pastry.
There’s likely also a greasiness issue—scones should have butter, but it should be distributed in cold pockets that create flakiness. If the scone is soft rather than crumbly, the fat has likely melted into the dough too early, creating an oily rather than flaky texture.
Flavor Profile: The flavor concept has merit: bak kwa brings sweet-savory umami and smokiness, Emmental contributes nutty, slightly fruity cheese notes, and scone dough provides buttery, subtly sweet base. Together, these should create a satisfying savory breakfast pastry.
In execution, though, the flavors apparently don’t come together compellingly enough to overcome the textural issues. The chicken bak kwa (which is milder than pork versions) might not have enough punch to stand out against the cheese and butter. Emmental, while flavorful, is subtle compared to more aggressive cheeses.
Without proper textural foundation, flavors can’t shine. If the scone is dense and oily, it will make everything taste heavier and less refined than intended.
The Experience: This feels like a rushed attempt to capitalize on CNY trends without mastering the basic craft. Scones are technically challenging—they require careful technique to achieve proper texture. Adding fusion elements before perfecting the base is a common mistake.
The low rating seems justified not because the concept is bad (bak kwa and cheese could work beautifully in proper scone form) but because execution failed at a fundamental level. This is an example of innovation for innovation’s sake without ensuring quality.
Overall Analysis: The State of CNY Innovation in 2026
What Works
The most successful items on this list share common traits:
- Textural complexity: Multiple textures working in harmony (Bak Kwa Kouign Amann)
- Balanced fusion: Respecting both traditional and modern elements
- Quality base execution: Innovation built on solid technical foundation
- Purposeful pairing: Ingredients chosen for complementary rather than shock value
What Doesn’t
The failures typically stem from:
- Concept over execution: Interesting idea, poor technical execution (Bak Kwa Scone)
- Flavor intensity imbalance: One element overwhelming others (Kopi Siew Dai Cookies)
- Textural monotony: Soft on soft with no contrast (Pork Floss Shio Pan)
- Cognitive dissonance: Creating confusion rather than delight (Laksa Cookies)
The Verdict on Innovation
This year’s lineup shows that Singapore’s food scene isn’t afraid to experiment, which is commendable. But it also reveals that not all innovation is created equal. The best innovations honor tradition while pushing boundaries thoughtfully. The weakest treat novelty as inherently valuable, regardless of whether the eating experience justifies the concept.
For consumers navigating this landscape, the lesson is clear: “unique” doesn’t automatically mean “good.” Sometimes, the classic pineapple tart is classic for a reason. But when innovation is executed with skill and respect for both ingredients and tradition—as in the Bak Kwa Kouign Amann—the results can be genuinely exciting.
Recommendations by Audience
For Adventurous Eaters: Try the Mala Chiffon (if you like spice) and Lo Hei Cookies (for the experience)
For Safe Exploration: Start with Bak Kwa Kouign Amann—it’s innovative but accessible
For Traditional Palates with Curiosity: The Pork Floss Shio Pan is the gentlest introduction to fusion
For Durian Enthusiasts: The ‘Mao Shan Wang’ Osmanthus Dome delivers premium durian in elegant form
To Skip Entirely: Unless you’re a glutton for punishment or extremely curious, the Kopi Siew Dai Cookies and Bak Kwa Scone can be safely avoided
For Maximum Discussion Value: Bring the Laksa Cookies or Lo Hei Cookies to gatherings where you want to start conversations and debates
The Year of the Horse has certainly galloped in with bold flavors and boundary-pushing combinations. Whether these innovations become future classics or cautionary tales remains to be seen. For now, they offer a fascinating glimpse into how tradition evolves—sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but always with the courage to try something new.