Dessert Types

The sweet tooth door is officially open. Dessert, as it should be, derives from the French word, desservir, which means “to clear the table.” After the main course has been consumed, we clear the table and are then on to the sweets. This was first written in 1539, and it would appear absolutely nothing has changed since. Post dinner, in countries upon countries across the world people enjoy desserts. Heck, people also enjoy desserts at all times of the day. You don’t need to down a plate of steak and potatoes to then eat a bowl of ice cream. That ice cream could come at 4 in the afternoon or 10 in the morning.

Desserts come in a range of types and flavors. But there are some major categories that are widely accepted and used to categorize desserts across the world. The first are biscuits or cookies. We all know what these look like. The word biscuit is used more in Europe, while cookie in the US. The texture of either can be soft, chewy or crispy. What follows in the middle is typically creamy or a textured filling. The next category is cakes. Made with flour and sugar, cakes can be spongy, extremely dense or just the opposite, light and airy. On the inside the sky is truly the limit. Dessert chefs will put nuts, fruit, cocoa, pastry cream, buttercream, or even ice cream in cakes. The results are nearly always otherworldly.

Chocolate and candies are another popular category of desserts. Chocolate, as we well know, comes from cacao seeds, and is roasted, ground and many times flavored. Some folks prefer it unflavored, but the vast majority opt for flavoring. Milk chocolate contains milk powder or condensed milk, and adding sugar and fat to the cacao makes dark chocolate. Candies result from the crystallization of sugar. This can result in taffy, marshmallows or even caramel. And last but not least, pastries. Pastries are flaky or light bread that can take the form of something light and crispy like a croissant, or something a bit heavier such as shortbread. Pastries are a great example of a dessert that can serve as a breakfast item or something to be munched on throughout the day.

There are a host of other smaller dessert categories like pies and cobblers, deep-fried desserts, frozen desserts, as well as custards and puddings. CNN put together an interesting list of the best desserts from around the world. It’s rather extensive, but to give you an idea of the range of desserts, country-to-country, here are some highlights.

Alfajores – South America

These are crumbly, shortbread cookies filled with dulce de leche. This is a type of candy, eerily similar to caramel in many countries. Alfajores are sold in bakeries and even packaged throughout the region.

Cannoli, Sicily

Careful, cannolis are small, sweet, fun to eat and highly addictive. Desserts that are small do the most damage. You tend to think popping a couple isn’t so bad. After seven or eight you realize you’ve made a huge error. Filled with creamy cheese, this Sicilian classic is enjoyed worldwide.

Qatayef, Middle East

You don’t find qatayef all that frequently outside of the Middle East, but when you do, they don’t stick around. Like cannoli’s, qatayef combines a golden-fried crust with a creamy interior of fresh cheese, ground cinnamon or rose water. Yum!

Sesame Balls, Jian Dui, China

And to round this out (literally), we present the great Chinese sesame ball. These are tough to resist, and for good reason. Receiving an explosion of sweet and salty all at once is literally divine. With one crack of the balls’ crisp shell, you then uncover a sweet filling made of bean paste or even a soft puree of lotus seeds. Sesame balls are an amazing dessert, no doubt about it.

This post wasn’t designed to make you hungry, but it likely did. Desserts are absolute treats; just make sure not to overdo them.