Sweet summer vibes: new cheesecakes, croissants, cookies, and more rolled out

Bakers have unveiled an array of sweet delights ahead of the summer season’s kick off including croissants, cheesecakes, biscuits, cakes, cookies, and doughnuts.

Flavours showcased in the bakery debutants including the trending pistachio (as mentioned in our cake trends, flavour trends, and doughnut trends reports), along with the ever-popular Biscoff and chocolate orange. Cookies & cream, matcha & white chocolate, and coconut & pineapple are among the mouthwatering combinations also appearing in new products.

Discover more details on each sweet bakery NPD below:

Extra Special Pistachio Filled Croissant, Asda

The retailer adds a new pistachio-filled variety to its now ten-strong range of own-label croissants including Almond, Raspberry, Hazelnut, and Lotus Biscoff, which collectively shift over 100,000 per week (as per Asda’s latest product selling figures).

Priced at £2 for a pack of two, the croissants feature all-butter pastry freshly baked in-store with 24 laminations and the on-trend filling of pistachio with crumbled pistachio on top.

Asda said it was predicting to sell over 15,000 of the new items in its launch week alone, and noted that the UK’s sweet in-store bakery market continues to rise year on year, with Viennoiserie products such as croissants accounting for nearly one third of this (citing Circana retail data from April 2024).

Millionaire’s and Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Fingers, The Delicious Dessert Company

The Bakkavor-owned brand has unveiled two new luscious single-portion desserts, available in packs of two at Asda stores nationwide.

The Millionaire’s Cheesecake features a crunchy biscuit crumb beneath sticky toffee chocolate mixed with shortcake pieces, then topped with a rich chocolate ganache and a sprinkle of caramel curls. The Cookies & Cream Cheesecake boasts a rich cocoa biscuit crumb, loaded with a vanilla cheesecake mixed with cookie pieces, then topped with chocolate ganache and hand-finished with cookie chunks. 

The cheesecake fingers follow The Delicious Dessert Company’s other branded NPD recently launched at retailers including Caramelised Biscuit Yum Yums and Blonde Chocolate Éclairs.

Penguin & Friends biscuits, McVitie’s

Pladis-owned biscuit brand McVitie’s claims to be making a ‘big afternoon snacking play’ with its new range of portion-controlled snack packs: Penguin & Friends. Available in 5x20g multipacks (rsp: £1) in either Cocoa or Cocoa & Orange variants, they feature a selection of mini, crunchy Antarctic-themed biscuits including penguin, igloo, and fish shapes. They are first being launched at discounters before a wider rollout at all major retailers from June.

McVitie’s noted the new snacks are aimed at injecting further growth into the popular Family Treats segment, now worth £547m (up by 19% as per Nielsen data to 9 March 2024). It added that its chocolate-covered Penguin biscuits are a cupboard-staple for one in five UK households, with the figure climbing in tandem with the brand’s 33% growth (Nielsen data to 2 March 2024). Penguins were the inspiration for Australia’s Tim Tams almost 70 years ago, which have recently launched at British retailers.

Peppa Pig cakes and cupcakes, The Hummingbird Bakery

The London bakery chain has teamed up with Peppa Pig for a range of sweet bakery offerings to help mark the 20^th anniversary of the ‘queen of pre-school’.

Celebration cakes – priced from £40 (for a 6” cake) – include the Pink Velvet Peppa Sprinkle Cake, which features a pink makeover of Hummingbird’s signature Red Velvet cake, and the Sunny Days Rainbow Cake, comprising different coloured layers of sponge. There’s also the Rainbow Polka Dot Cake, the Muddy Puddles Cake, the Party Balloon Cake (in pink for Peppa or blue for George), the Spooky Pig Cake, and the Merry Christmas Cake.

Cupcakes feature vanilla or chocolate sponge with buttercream frosting, topped with Peppa Pig themed sugar decorations and sprinkle. They are £4.50 each or £27 for a box of six, and come in themed selections including Sunny Days, Friends, Family, Rainbow, Muddy Puddle, Halloween, and Christmas.

Cupcake selections can also be purchased as a DIY decorating kit for £27.50, available for home delivery nationwide. All other cupcakes, boxes and cakes can only be sent to London postcodes or collected from any of Hummingbird’s six stores across the capital including its new Soho location.

Matcha & White Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Doughlicious

‘Game, Set, Matcha!’ quips the London-based cookie dough brand as it suggests its new green tea-flavoured product is the perfect one-bite snack to enjoy whilst watching Wimbledon 2024. Each pack contains six ready-to-bake cookies, which can be baked in 12 to 14 minutes and are made with naturally gluten-free premium ingredients with no added refined sugar.

The Doughlicious range is sold in UK retailers including Tesco, Morrisons, Planet Organic, Whole Foods Market, Costco, and Selfridges Food Hall, among others. The company recently received £3.5m in funding from Dutch investment firm Triple B to help support a rollout of its frozen snacks at US stores.

Interestingly, the same matcha green tea and white chocolate flavour combination was used in Britain’s Best Loaf 2023, the Japonais Brioche by Kuma-San Bakehouse.

Blissfully Biscoff doughnut range, Krispy Kreme

Two new doughnuts have been created through an extension of the partnership between the two brands, which has already produced the Krispy Kreme Biscoff doughnut.

Making its debut is the Brookie, a ring doughnut topped with Biscoff Spread, Biscoff Crumb, mini choc chips and brownie pieces, and Biscoff Iced, a twist on Krispy Kreme’s Original Glazed doughnut made with Biscoff Spread.

These three doughnuts (£3.25 each) now form the Blissfully Biscoff range, which is being sold for a limited period only (four weeks until 16 June) and available either as a three-pack at selected Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons stores, or as a six-pack or dozen via the Krispy Kreme website. The range follows hot of the heels of the previous limited edition pair of KitKat and Mint Aero Doughnuts.

Sour Cherry Meringue Pie and Tropical Cheesecake, Country Range

Foodservice supplier Country Range has unveiled a new duo of desserts to help caterers take advantage of the upcoming season of socialising.

The Sour Cherry Meringue Pie comes after the highly successful launch of Country Range’s Cherry Pie last year. It showcases crisp sweet pastry filled with a sour cherry filling and topped with crisp yet fluffy meringue.

The Tropical Cheesecake has a coconut digestive biscuit base with white chocolate-enriched cheesecake filling topped with a layer of pineapple compote.

Both desserts are sold frozen and pre-portioned in boxes of 14 – they simply need thawing before serving.