Say goodbye to mile-high slices of pie and 20-scoop sundaes. The latest trend in dessert dining (really more of a revival) is of a smaller proportion – literally. Diners are asking chefs to mini-size their desserts, and chefs have been quick to respond.

Pastry Chef Jessica Sullivan of Boulevard, an American regional restaurant with French influences in San Francisco, notes that her bite-sized ice cream  bon bons have been a hit at the restaurant; particularly the milk chocolate peanut butter ice cream bon bon. First, she makes an ice cream with Valrhona milk chocolate and a creamy peanut butter made in-house, and then dips the whole sweet in Valrhona dark chocolate to give it a crunchy chocolate shell.

Sullivan takes inspiration for these mini creations from familiar, nostalgic dessert flavors such as after dinner mint, rocky road, and butterscotch flavors, creating other versions of this dessert for Boulevard’s menu. Why go small? According to Sullivan, the recent economic downturn has made diners a bit more budget-conscious, so offering a small and affordable dessert speaks to those customers. Plus, guests enjoy sharing a variety of  bon bons together at their table. 

Old School small: Petit fours and more

While many assume this trend of small desserts is a recent phenomenon, two-bite sweets are a luxury that dates back to the 18th century. Petit fours, or small fancy cookies, cakes or confectionary, had to be baked after the large cakes had been taken out of the oven and the temperature had lowered.

This included bon bons, small cakes, marzipan, candied fruit, macaroons and small pastries. When a platter of mixed petit fours is served, it is called mignardise, and many modern restaurants today serve mignardise after dessert.

Although petit fours were tiny, these small desserts received just as much attention in filling and decorating from pastry chefs as their larger counterparts did, and it is this attention to detail that helped them to stand out as desserts. It is interesting to note that back in the 18th century, people had a desire for a variety of small bites for dessert or to accompany coffee or tea, much like we do today. 

Fine dining restaurants are particularly creative when it comes to creating two-bite desserts. Pastry Chef Nathaniel Reid at St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, California, agrees with Sullivan that customers like seeing familiar desserts on the menu, and he likes to get creative with flavors or presentations. The key, according to Reid, is balance. A small dessert has to be visually appealing but also have balanced flavors.

His choux crema Catalana is a perfect example. Crema Catalana is traditionally a crème brulee flavored with citrus and cinnamon. Reid turns this dessert into a bite-sized treat by serving it in a pâte à choux shell coated in crispy brown sugar, which represents the sugar crust on the crème brulee. He places lemon confit in the bottom of the shell, and then a light cinnamon-citrus crème with a liquid caramel center.

Jenifer Fournier, Pastry Chef for nine years at Alex at the Wynn in Las Vegas, serves mini pre-desserts and post-dessert petit fours in a tasting menu form and is constantly trying to reinvent familiar flavors into new and innovative presentations. Her crème fraîche pannacotta with vanilla rhubarb broth sounds simple, but Fournier uses a variety of techniques to get the most out of her ingredients for this tiny pre-dessert.

She poaches finely cut rhubarb with orange and vanilla, then strains it to create the broth. Next, she spreads the strained rhubarb bits on a silicon baking sheet to dehydrate and serves them as tuiles with the finished dessert.

Fournier also does a vegan petit four that stretches the creative boundaries: a berry cylinder filled with a citrus rice cream made from soy milk, citrus sugar, vanilla, and Japanese sticky rice. For the cylinder, she purees mixed berries, and dehydrates them into thin sheets, then tops with isomalt, which she has already cooked to 170°F, ground and sifted into a fine powder. This makes the sheets flexible enough to fold into small cylinders.

A typical tasting menu offers many different mini desserts, and Fournier feels diners appreciate the opportunity to taste an assortment of sweets — even  if they often find the collection of bite-sized treats too indulgent for one sitting and choose to take some home.

Serving small desserts does not come without a few hurdles. Charlie Schaffer of Schaffer’s Genuine Foods catering in Los Angeles is no stranger to this and feels one of the biggest obstacles is the cost of expanding your inventory of “mini” baking and serving vessels, like tart pans, crumble dishes, sake cups, shot glasses, and demitasse spoons. However, Schaffer believes that as diners become more conscious of calories, these tiny sweet bites become more important on a menu.

An entire portion of Schaffer’s catering menu is devoted to “bites” of dessert, ranging from mini fleur de sel caramel pot de crèmes served in sake cups to kiwi lime tartlets, tiny coconut cream pies to mini chai crème brûlées served in demitasse spoons. His “bites” require a variety of serving styles, so a chef just starting to do mini desserts may benefit from serving ones that do not require a plethora of serving presentations.

The biggest obstacle for pastry chef Jennifer McMurry of Viola Pastry Boutique in Santa Rosa, California, is how to price a high quality mini dessert. A lot of people are looking for value, but as a chef, you can’t compromise on quality of product, which naturally makes the price higher. Clearly she is doing something right, because McMurry’s mini desserts are flying off the shelf.

The shop specializes in mini whoopee pies filled with vanilla powdered sugar frosting, mini waffle cones with seasonal sorbets (strawberry was most recently on tap), and ice cream  bon bons. Her fleur del sel ice cream  bon bon is particularly interesting, and McMurry uses a basic ice cream base and stirs in fleur de sel while it is still hot so the salt melts, making for a salty, sweetly perfect bite.

Regardless if customers are cutting calories, spending less money or seeking to try a wide variety of flavors for their final course of a meal, two-bite desserts are making a comeback. They fit in perfectly with a variety of menus and, if done properly, can make a great price point. From  bon bons to brûlées, mini desserts is one part of the dining experience where smaller really is better. 

Leena Trivedi-Grenier is a Bay-Area food writer and cooking teacher. Her writing has appeared in The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industry, and will be featured in several upcoming titles by Greenwood Press as well as an upcoming Cultural Arts Resources for Teachers and Students newsletter.  Check her out on her food blog, www.leenaeats.com.