2 Jun 2026
The sensory experience of soft cream, rich custard and contrasting textures drives global appeal
If you’re looking for a format that will be a surefire hit with customers, opt for a treat with a cream filling. During our latest Taste Tomorrow survey among 23,000 consumers across 56 countries, we discovered that 86% of consumers believe cream filling adds to the tastiness of sweet pastry, cakes and fine patisserie, up from 81% previously. The appeal is universal: indulgent, textural and endlessly adaptable across cultures and formats.
Cream puff trends: choux pastry innovation and global flavor development
The number one classic cream filled pastry remains the cream puff: a golden, airy choux shell filled with whipped cream, custard or pastry cream. Its simplicity makes it a perfect base for innovation. Demand is rising fast, with online interest in frozen cream puffs growing by a massive +112% over the past year. Chains like Bearded Papa continue to expand globally with flavors such as chocolate, matcha, Oreo crumble and strawberry.
One specific puff pastry has really taken off: the Osaka cream puff. People queue for hours outside of the MooKen bakery in Osaka Japan to get hold of their crème brûlée cream puffs. The crispy, caramelized exterior filled with a rich and fluffy custard went viral and is now being copied all around the world, either as Osaka cream puff or cream brulee cream puff. This contrast between crisp exterior and soft filling is key to its appeal. The concept is now spreading globally under names like crème brûlée cream puff. We expect to see plenty more cream puff innovations or twists on the classic French eclair. Those will focus not just on innovative flavors, but also on texture with added crisp, crunch or chewiness.
Custard pastry and egg tart trends: texture contrast drives consumer appeal
From Portuguese pastéis de nata to Hong Kong egg tarts, all around the globe consumers are falling hard for the textural contrast of a flaky crust filled with velvety custard. This aligns with the outcomes of our consumer survey, which show 71% enjoy foods with contrasting textures.
Recent launches highlight this momentum. Tim Hortons’ custard tart sparked a massive amount of social media coverage, while interest in Hong Kong egg tarts rose by 30% over the past year. Leading examples include sourdough bakery Bakehouse by Grégoire Michaud and Malaysian foodservice chain Oriental Kopi, known for its record-breaking layered egg tarts with 128 handcrafted pastry layers. Flavor innovation, including pandan, taro and Belgian chocolate, adds further appeal.
When it comes to other custard pastries and danishes, we see a lot of fruit flavors that are quickly gaining traction over the past year, especially plum custard (+50%), apple custard (+18%) and cherry custard (+30%).
These flavors balance sweetness with acidity and deliver vibrant colors that perform well on social media. The rhubarb custard tart by New York-based Radio Bakery is a strong example, combining visual impact with flavor complexity. The danish is topped with mascarpone and vanilla custard and finished with rhubarb poached in hibiscus. The pairing of rhubarb and hibiscus not only taps into the consumer desire for tangy flavors, but it also gives the patisserie an incredible hot pink color that makes it pop on social media. Another important driver for food choices, particularly among Gen Z consumers.
Cream-filled donuts, bomboloni and maritozzi trends: indulgent and premium bakery concepts
A freshly baked donut, cut in half, filled with a towering layer of spaghetti ice cream, rolled in cocoa powder and served with mini pipettes filled with black coffee. That’s the tiramisu donut by Baby Mayhem in Manchester (UK). A treat so large and with such excessive filling it gets served with a knife and fork. It's just one of the indulgent donuts going viral now that the popularity of ice cream filled donuts has risen 30% over the past year, according to Google Trends data.
Consumers are looking for treats that look incredibly shareable and might even have a shock-factor because of their sheer size. On the other side, brands like Cafe Knotted in Seoul focus on refined presentation, with carefully finished donuts featuring matcha cream and fresh strawberries. This reflects a split in consumer demand between playful indulgence and premium, aesthetic products.
Bakeries and cafes that value authentic recipes now look to Italy for inspiration. Bomboloni and maritozzi are appearing on menus from Australia to Hong Kong, driven by their strong texture and indulgence appeal. Bomboloni are Italian style filled donuts, but with a lighter and fluffier texture and more highly fermented dough.
The Fat Kid Bakery in Singapore offers full size bombos and smaller bombolinis with both sweet and savoury fillings, from chocolate and blueberry cheesecake to spicy egg mayo and sour cream & onion. Dough Beings in Hong Kong – also famous for its bomboloni – has even more outspoken options such as banana red bean meringue and honey ham comté cheese truffle. The concept cleverly taps into both the consumer love for creamy fillings and the desire of 63% of global consumers to try new flavors or a combination of tastes which is unusual at first.
Maritozzi, soft brioche buns filled with whipped cream and mascarpone, have seen a +40% increase in online popularity. This pastry used to be an Italian breakfast staple, but now bakers worldwide are serving this sweet bun as an all-day treat. In London two Italian bakeries are making waves with their maritozzi. Forno serves traditional maritozzi with a towering amount of cream and Il Botanico has several flavor varieties which are dipped in chocolate or chopped pistachio. Their counters also contain other cream filled Italian pastry classics, such as gianduja buns, zeppole and cannoli. Is this a possible sign Italian patisserie will overtake classic French patisserie as the most trendy pastry offering? Only time will tell.
Texture, indulgence and visual appeal drive cream-filled bakery success
Cream-filled pastries deliver on multiple consumer demands at once: taste, texture and visual appeal. The contrast between crisp and soft, light and rich, familiar and innovative creates a sensory experience that feels both comforting and exciting. For bakery and patisserie brands, the opportunity lies in going beyond flavor. Techniques like brûléed finishes, laminated pastry structures or exaggerated fillings can transform classic products into modern icons. Brands that combine craftsmanship with bold flavor pairings and outspoken, indulgent textures will gain traction.
7 out of 10 consumers now enjoy food with different textures
Texture is now a reason consumers choose one product over another. From crackly crusts and shatteringly crisp pastry to oozy fillings and chewy cookies, mouthfeel has become an important quality cue and a powerful driver of social media appeal. For bakers, patissiers, and chocolatiers, that makes texture a core consideration in product development.
