For some of us, dinner out is just an excuse for dessert. For others, dessert is the only thing on the menu. U.S. bakeries, creameries, and sweets shops know how to impress — and how to take their creations over the top. From coast to coast, we found piled-high milkshakes, towering cakes, and even glow-in-the-dark cotton candy. If dessert is first on the menu and in your heart, check out these wild treats that you should eat at least once.
Denver
The Inventing Room demo dessert shop in Denver is part spectacle, part sweet treat. The shop sells tickets to its confectionary demonstrations where mad scientists create fantastical items like glow-in-the-dark cotton candy.
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Franklin, Tennessee
Croissant meets donut in these stacked high and flaky-as-can-be creations fromFive Daughters Bakery, in Franklin, Tennessee. Each 100 Layer Donut packs in as much dough as five traditional doughnuts. Staple flavors include chocolate sea salt and vanilla cream, but you should watch for seasonal flavors such as cream cheese sticky bun and carrot cake.
Related: Unique Doughnuts You Have to Try
New York
New York City’sBlack Tap Craft Burgers & Beer begins with a simple milkshake, then dials it up to outrageous with decadent additions. The Churro Choco Taco shake comes with a choco taco, two churros, whipped cream, and a dulce de leche drizzle. The signature Cakeshake is what birthday dreams are made of. It features a vanilla frosted rim with rainbow sprinkles topped with an actual funfetti cake slice, whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles, and a cherry.
Related: The Best Milkshake in Every State
Los Angeles
With roots in Saigon, Los Angeles’sLittle Damage soft serve ice cream shop specializes in fantastical flavors. It uses activated charcoal to create “Made for the ‘Gram” black waffle cones. That same ingredient helps create black ice cream flavors such as chocolate, horchata, and a seasonal flavor — black pudding (inspired by the English breakfast food) — for an unforgettable-looking dessert.
Minneapolis
Milkjam Creamery’s house-made flavors are tempting — Ridin’ Durrrrty has Oreo milk ice cream with Oreo chunks and salted peanut butter and Cereal Killers comes with orange coriander milk dotted with candied Fruity Pebbles cereal, to name a few. The Minneapolis staple has a solution if you can’t decide which of the tempting flavors to order: All of Them. Ordering it gets you one of each of the flavors of the day, usually around 16 scoops.
Boston
Boston-area bakery Blackbird Doughnuts has definitively answered the question, “What’s more indulgent than a doughnut?” A doughnut ice cream sandwich. Already popular for indulgent doughnuts thanks to seasonal flavors like s’mores and creamsicle, the shop ups the flavor ante by sandwiching vanilla or chocolate soft serve ice cream between your choice of doughnut. Classicmenu choices include chocolate old fashioned, the Blackbird (vanilla bean cake with vanilla glaze), and chocolate sprinkle doughnuts.
Hilo, Hawaii
Makani’s Magic Pineapple Shack, in Hilo, Hawaii, is known for its tropical and colorful creations. The Unicone features purple ube (a West African fruit also called bush pear) and pink dragon fruit soft-serve swirled and topped with rainbow sprinkles.
Birmingham, Alabama
The Kolossal Milkshake comes in 14 different flavors, including a cotton candy shake that fell straight out of a Lisa Frank dream and intoK&J’s Elegant Pastries and Creamery in Birmingham, Alabama. Served in a Southern-pride mason jar, this shake is topped with a rainbow lollipop, a turquoise cupcake, and a full serving of blue, pink, and purple cotton candy.
Miami
Sweet or savory? The S’mores Melt offers both with roasted marshmallows, salted chocolate hazelnut spread, and graham cracker crumble heated to gooey perfection on sourdough bread. It’s the creation ofMs. Cheezious, a sandwich-centric eatery and food truck based in Miami.
Boston
The sisters at the helm of Boston’s Double Chin restaurant love a good pun and a good twist on a classic. That irreverence inspired their signature dessert: cube toast. The dessert turns bite-sized pieces of brioche French toast into the building blocks of a much crazier treat. The square French toast is filled with chocolate ice cream, fruit, mochi, cereal, Pocky sticks, M&M’s, chocolate sauce, and condensed milk — and that’s just the Muddy Madness flavor.
Want delicious regional treats delivered directly to your door? Goldbelly ships nationwide from hundreds of local bakeries, food shops, and restaurants. Search for old favorites or discover new obsessions.
Sterling Heights, Michigan
Grab dessert on the go withStreet Sweets’ waffle pops. The bakery serves custom waffles on a stick and five standard flavors. These include the Cookie Monster, which is a chocolate waffle dipped in Nutella, topped with Oreos and candy eyes, then drizzled with Nutella.
West Dover, Vermont
Sweet cinnamon rolls feel like eating dessert for breakfast. The over-the-top Cinnamon Roll Cake fromSticky Fingers Bakery may have you banishing smoothies and toast for good. The three-tier cinnamon roll cake includes 13 cinnamon rolls that are proofed and baked together. According to the bakery, one order serves 25 to 30 people.
Anaheim, California
At theHouse of Chimney Cakes, cake is just the starting point for dessert. The cake cones are filled to the brim and topped sky-high with theatrical additions. In the Fashionista, a Cocoa Pebbles Chimney Cone is filled with Dutch-chocolate ice cream, then topped with caramel chips, chocolate Pocky sticks, large chocolate slivers, and chocolate sauce. There are locations in Anaheim, California; Arlington, Texas; and Dearborn, Michigan.
Related: The Most Decadent Chocolate Desserts Across America
Minneapolis
Many holiday meal conversations turn into intense debates when families try to decide on what kind of cake or pie to serve. This indulgent mash-up delivers the best holiday desserts at the same time. The original PieCaken fromPieCaken Bakeshop begins with a pecan pie that’s stacked with a pumpkin pie and a spice cake, then topped with apple pie filling. Cinnamon buttercream divides the layers. The cakes ship nationwide through Goldbelly.
Related: Under-the-Radar Restaurants With Amazing Homemade Pie
New York
Dessert instead of flowers? Yes, please. New York City’s Stuffed Ice Cream serves over-the-topice cream bouquets with an option for seven or 21 flavors. The gravity-defying scoops are stacked on hardy waffle cones. The displays can be colorful with flavors such as Cookie Monster (blue), Red Velvet Cookie Dough Crumble (red), Thai Iced Tea (orange), and White Chocolate Lavender (purple).
Las Vegas
Las Vegas’sLAVO Italian Restaurant proves you can never get enough of the classic chocolate–peanut butter combo with a 20-layer cake. The towering cake alternates layers of devil’s food cake made with chocolatiers’ go-to brand Valrhona chocolate with peanut butter mascarpone. This whopping cake stands 10 inches tall and weighs 12 pounds.
New York
New York City’sClinton Hall transforms waffles into skyscraper dessert towers. The WFT Birthday Cake Waffles, for example, feature three confetti waffles stacked with Fruit Loops ice cream, topped with rainbow confetti sprinkles, rainbow cake, lollipops, raspberry sauce, a waffle cone, and whipped cream.