Snowflake crisp (雪花酥) is a Taiwanese snack: soft milk nougat folded around crisp crackers and real mix-ins — dried cranberries, roasted nuts, that kind of thing — then dusted with milk powder. The dusting is the "snow," and it also keeps your fingers clean.
What snowflake crisp tastes like
The texture is the whole point. Cracker snap first, then the chew of the nougat, then whatever the mix-ins bring. When it's made right the sweetness sits back and lets you taste the butter, the toasted nuts, the tartness of the fruit — that's what people mean when they call a Taiwanese snack 不會太甜, not too sweet.
It isn't candy and it isn't a cookie. It's the thing you set out next to a pot of tea and let people help themselves.
Where it comes from
Snowflake crisp is a modern Taiwanese confection, not one fixed recipe — makers change the crackers, mix-ins, and nougat ratio, so two boxes with the same name can be completely different bites. You'll also see 雪Q餅, a denser cousin, and 牛軋糖 (nougat candy), the firmer traditional version. The Q in 雪Q餅 is a Taiwanese texture word for springy-chewy; we wrote more on that in what Q texture actually means.
It's also a gift snack. In Taiwan there's a word for the thing you bring when you visit someone — 伴手禮 — and snowflake crisp fits that moment: individually wrapped, looks good on a table, no plates or forks. That's why it sits alongside pineapple cakes around Lunar New Year.
What's in it
The base is simple: crackers, marshmallow, butter, and milk powder. Melt the marshmallow and butter, stir in milk powder, fold in crackers and mix-ins while it's still warm enough to move, press into a slab, dust, cut. The timing is the trick — too hot and the crackers go soft, too cool and nothing folds in.
The crackers matter more than you'd think. The same recipe with a different cracker is a different snack. If you want to try it at home, our snowflake crisp recipe has the troubleshooting notes.
Our version
Snowflake crisp is the category. Snowcubes are our version — made to order by hand in our Queens kitchen, my husband and me. I develop the recipes, and I go lighter on the marshmallow than most of what you'll find on a shelf, because I'd rather you taste the cranberry or the matcha than just sweet.
Each cube is sealed on its own so the crackers stay crisp until you open it. One honest note: traditional snowflake crisp uses soda crackers, which have gluten. Most of our flavors do too — the exception is our Oatmeal Raisin Crumble, which is gluten-free.
Last updated August 2026.
