Sift Picks: Best Dessert Trends - Sift Dessert Bar

Sift Picks: Best Dessert Trends

Apr 25, 2018

We love keeping an eye on what’s new in the dessert world, and these were some of our very favorite trends! Lots of bright colors, interesting flavors, and sweets piled to the rafters. Delicious!

Wine-Steeped Desserts

Experimental dessert gurus have always liked to use boozy flavors in their goodies (goodness knows we do!), and this past year was no different. We noticed a few particular flavors took the lead – rosé wine, for example. In fact, we’re releasing our very own Rosé All Day Macarons on May 1st! Sugarfina also released some absolutely amazing rosé gummy bears, and we’ve also seen it appear in ice creams, paletas, gelées, and more. The rosé flavor profile brings out strawberry and floral notes, which is wonderful in desserts. Humphry Slocombe ice creamery in San Francisco loves to make their Jesus Juice sorbet with red wine, and if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll notice wine-y treats popping up all over the place. The love has moved beyond wine country! If you love wine check out our blog on wine and dessert pairings

Cakes Out Of A Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel

slice of rainbow cake

2017 saw lots of dessert pros step up their game to a whole new out-of-this-world level with gorgeously designed custom cakes featuring galaxies swirled with stars or multi-tiered rainbow “unicorn” concoctions. Novelty cakes have always been a big draw, but the designs are growing ever more sophisticated with the addition of technology that allows pastry chefs to literally design the cakes of their dreams with software before crafting them by hand, or even using special printers to make edible designs.

Rainbow Bagels with Sweet Cream Cheese

New York City and San Diego in particular saw the rise of the aptly-named “Rainbow Bagel” in 2016, which is, you guessed it, a bagel featuring a tie-dye burst of bright colors. In 2017, we saw a lot of places take the next step to elevate them to dessert status! Just add sweet cream cheese and toppings, and you’ve got yourself a tasty multicolored sugar sandwich. Watching someone make them is almost as much fun as eating them – it involves a whole lot of colored dough, much swirling, and a hefty serving of tasty icing and sprinkles.

Make it Big, Bigger, Biggest

three layers ice cream cake

We don’t think it’s a big secret that Americans can be drawn to excess, and dessert’s no exception. Lots of restaurants have taken that to heart and come up with absolutely massive towers of sticky sweetness, whether it’s an ice cream sundae piled high with every candy known to mankind or a monumental mound of hotcakes topped with sticky caramel, cream, and bananas foster. There are even places taking hot cocoa to the next level by topping it with treats like biscotti or donuts, including our very own! Sometimes that sweet tooth just demands more, more, more. You can visit us for cocoa topped with cookies, macarons, and sprinkles over the whipped cream. Yum!

What’s Next for 2018?

It’s tough to predict trends, of course, because they come straight from innovators! Who would have thought cronuts would take off like they did? But from what we know now, we’re seeing a lot of buzz in the States for trends that got their start in Asia, including rolled ice cream, Japanese water cake, and tons of tea-based flavors. The founder of Milk Bar is predicting we’ll see more laminated dough, “naked” layer cakes, and experiments with bark and candy bars. As for Sift, we’ve got a few secrets up our sleeve that we’re excited to unveil in the coming months, so stay tuned!

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