Desserts

Justin Brunson taps pastry queen Nadine Donovan to spearhead the dessert program at Old Major

Justin Brunson is happier than a pig in mud. The chef-owner of Masterpiece Deli recently launched Denver Bacon Company, he's on the prowl for a second location to open another Masterpiece, and in February of next year, he'll unveil Old Major, a seafood, swine and wine restaurant in Highland that bro ... More >>

Food Channel's top ten dessert trends for 2011: two out of ten ain't bad

​If you hear it from the Food Channel, then it must be true. This crew's latest list -- of top ten dessert trends -- includes mass wedding cake genocide, tableside theatrics, Cinnamon Twists from Taco Bell, beer paired with doughnuts, two-fisting nuts (and yes, "two-fisting" is being used as ... More >>

Ice Cream Alchemy is behind the goods at one of Denver's five best spots for ice cream

Peter Arendsen and his company, Ice Cream Alchemy, is behind TAG's ice cream.​A week ago, we brought you a list of the five best spots for ice cream in Denver, including a couple of restaurants that happen to serve up great scoops. But while one of those -- Frasca Food & Wine -- makes its gela ... More >>

Colorado Senator Chris Romer keeps pushing his Denver Cupcake Truck petition

​Colorado Senator Chris Romer, who's making a run for mayor now that Hick is the new guv, seems to be making cupcakes -- notably those from the Denver Cupcake Trucks -- one of his top priorities. Last week, we reported that Romer had splashed his official website with a plea to sign a petition ... More >>

Denver mayoral candidate Chris Romer and his petition to save the Denver Cupcake Trucks from bureaucracy and red tape

Clyde and Clementine, the Denver Cupcake Trucks, have been grounded until city officials can come up with answers to lingering questions​ Unless you've been coffined in frosting, you've no doubt heard that Clyde and Clementine, the Denver Cupcake Trucks, have gone dormant -- at least for the ... More >>

Top Chef Just Desserts, round six: All in black and white

Erika Davis's blue cheese milk chocolate soup​This week's Quickfire challenge was to make desserts using savory ingredients and -- the really hard part -- only one pot. "I'm used to having all these fancy little tools," mourned Zac, while Morgan, unable to use an ice-cream maker, tackled liqui ... More >>

Top Chef Just Desserts: That's the way the cookie crumbles

Heather Chittum is out.​I'm enjoying Just Desserts more than I enjoyed the regular Top Chef, though in many ways I'm more interested in savory food than dessert. Although the Dessert contestants are pretty high octane, they're also more emotionally honest, and there's a lighter, more playful f ... More >>

Sweet Action: I scream, you scream, is there beer in your ice cream?

​ Sweet Action Ice Cream, 52 Broadway, which is scooping up acclaim left and right, is hosting its second annual Colorado Beer Ice Cream Fest with six flavors of the creamy stuff made with local beers. Last year, Sweet Action used brews from Great Divide, Breckenridge, Fort Collins Brewing, S ... More >>

Lovely Confections will soon cart its cupcakes to the 16th Street Mall

​Early next month, Porche Lovely, the master baker of Lovely Confections, the cupcake bakery at 1489 Steele Street, is taking her cupcakes to the street -- specifically the 16th Street Mall, where she will unmask a street cart. Shocking.

In search of Denver's best cupakes: A photo diary of one man's journey

By Ryan DeWitt The inspiration for this venture stemmed from getting burnt out on the city's ice cream/froyo/gelato scene -- specifically from eating far too much of it all. Essentially, I needed something else to appease my sugar and sweets addiction. Enter cupcakes. My thinking was this: Cupcake ... More >>

Goodbye cupcake, hello doughnut

​The cupcake trend appears to be gasping its last breath in a fully saturated market, and national eat blogs and food writers are having a heyday with bidding farewell. Dessert must go on, though, and Jezebel just polled its readers on what sweet they thought would become the post-cupcake tre ... More >>

Beer Floats shake things up for summer

Flickr​Summer means beer. Summer also means ice cream. So why not combine the two? Beer floats, beer shakes and other beery desserts are gaining popularity as beer and food culture grows. And while Colorado doesn't yet boast a Beer Float Showdown like L.A., you can find plenty of places to co ... More >>

A non-vegan's assessment of the vegan Ho Ho cupcake from Watercourse Foods Bakery

Liz KellermeyerVegany delicious​Indulging in the vegan Ho Ho cupcake offered at Watercourse Foods Bakery 214 East 13th Avenue, is like a guiltless return to childhood. True, we can't guarantee that it's low-calorie, but the dairy-and-egg-free sweet manages to improve the Hostess snack cake by ... More >>

Gigi's Cupcakes is now open in Governor's Park

​We thought doughnuts were the new cupcakes, but it looks like cupcakes are here to stay. A new specialty bakeshop featuring 45 different flavors of the mini-cakes opened Saturday at 550 Grant Street in Denver.

Sweet Tees

Happy Cakes has a sweet cupcake project

​Over the past few years, cupcake shops have popped up across town; they're this decade's frozen yogurt shop. In Denver, you can trace the trend back to Happy Cakes Bakeshop in Highland, and that shop -- now in a new location in the courtyard at 3434 West 32nd Avenue -- remains on the cutting ... More >>

Beer cupcakes and beer milkshakes from Sam Adams and Breckenridge Brewery

​Chocolate porters, JuJu Ginger, raspberry ales. They all pair well with desserts. But what do you do if you want to go beyond the pairing and actually infuse include beers as an ingredient in you dessert? Boston's Samuel Adams is trying to make it easy on people with a recipe it released in ... More >>

Sugar High: Apple pie from Bang!

Liz KellermeyerApple pie perfection​ The apple pie from Bang! (3472 W. 32nd Avenue), which won first place in a recent pie competition at Steve's Snappin' Dogs, is a thing of beauty, with its thin slices of apple stacked between two golden crusts and accompanied by a single scoop of vanilla i ... More >>

Lard of the land: John Hinman wins cherry pie fight

Kim LongThe upper crust of pastry chefs: Elizabeth Thomas and John Hinman.​It started off so innocently: Elizabeth Thomas, pastry chef forWaterCourse Foods and City O' City, was visiting her sister, who works at Marczyk Fine Foods, and got a taste of the pie that John "Haji" Hinman had been ma ... More >>

The Denver Cupcake Truck rolls into town

Denon MooreYour new favorite sight.​Yeah, that's right: Cupcake. Truck. The team behind Cake Crumbs Bakery, 2216 Kearney Street, is taking their show on the road come Tuesday, April 13, the day their new cupcake truck hits the streets. "I've just always had a vision of cupcakes being vended ... More >>

Lovely Confections celebrating with free cupcakes

Liz KellermeyerBooze in cupcake form: delicious!​ We know you're planning to get your Irish on later tonight, but if you want to get your St. Paddy's party started early, a stop by Lovely Confections Bakery (1489 Steele St.) will do you good. The cupcake shop is offering two holiday specialty flav ... More >>

Swirl Girl: Drink dessert wines on Valentine's Day

​Valentine's Day. The holiday perhaps most feared in the hearts of...well, everyone. How can one silly, Hallmark greeting-dominated day be so over-hyped, yet so continuously underwhelming, at least in terms of delivering that rapturous, romantic haze we all want to be caught up in? One sur ... More >>

Denver's top ten ice cream shops

​Jason Sheehan guaranteed this week's cold snap by reviewing Red Trolley, 2639 West 32nd Avenue, which serves up all-natural ice cream with no high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavor, artificial color and trans-fats. Assuming you're not deterred by the ice on the streets, here are nine mo ... More >>

Will chocolate get Tiger Woods to talk? Big Fat Cupcakes is betting on it

​Right. So, you've no doubt heard that sex addict golf great Tiger Weeds can't keep his dick in his pants. And aside from a few posts on his website, one of which whines, "I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means," he has yet to utter an audible wor ... More >>

The Second Annual Thanksgiving Dinner Fantasy Draft: What dishes would you pick?

A Flickr photo.​It's that time of year again: Time to gather around a table of people you don't know or don't like, shovel uninspiring food into your face and then retire to the couch and wait for the Tryptophan to get working. But what if it wasn't that way? What if you could build your perf ... More >>

Sugar High: Cake and shake at D Bar Desserts

Liz Kellermeyer​ Even though Keegan Gerhard and his wife, Lisa Bailey, opened D Bar Desserts, 1475 East 17th Avenue, just under two years ago, it took about two minutes for the sugar house to emerge as one of the city's premiere dessert spots. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner Monday through ... More >>

Sugar High: Sugar Bakeshop doughnuts and Sweet Action hot chocolate float

Liz Kellermeyer​Welcome to the first installment of our new feature, Sugar High. Check back here every Friday to see where we indulged our sweet tooth during the week.   Granted, the chilly weather doesn't make an ice cream shop immediately leap to mind when considering where to warm the b ... More >>

Fun, Furry and Edible

D Bar Desserts is too good to save for dessert

D Bar Desserts celebrates its first anniversary with free cupcakes!

Put a little sprinkle in your step this Saturday, May 23, when D Bar Desserts, the magnificent bakery, sugar shack and savory foods shop at 1475 East 17th Avenue, celebrates its first anniversary with free cupcakes -- just one of the attention-grabbers at the food-porn patisserie that chef (and Food ... More >>

Who wants cupcakes...? Nomelie has them

Just hit Nomelie Cupcakes at 19751 East Main Street in Parker. According to the website, the joint technically closes between 2 and 4 p.m. on weekdays -- and maybe I'm just being crazy here, but wouldn't you think that a cupcake maker (or at least a cupcake maker who actually wanted to make some mon ... More >>

Get your cupcake on, Parker!

People in Parker, you are mere hours away from delicious cupcakes. And you can thank Selah Davenport for that. Although she's been doing special-order cupcakes since 2007, tomorrow she'll have a soft opening for her own retail place, Nomelie Cupcakes.  While the bakery, located at 19751 East ... More >>

Pink Hooter cupcake for a cause

The Candy Girls were systematically working our way around the chocolate shops, bakeries and specialty candy makers of Denver when we stumbled upon Big Fat Cupcake, 129 Adams Street. While the uniquely flavored, award-winning cupcakes drew us in, it was shop-owner Kathleen Nevin's mission to donat ... More >>

Veggie Girl: O's Steak and Seafood

Being a vegetarian sometimes means feeling like you're always a bridesmaid and never the bride. Sure, that gnocchi entree is delicious, but meat eaters who go to to Italian restaurants get to order both primi pasta dishes and secondi meat dishes for a full three- or four-course meal. I've always ... More >>

It's Denver Cupcake Week for Lovely Confections Bakery

When the going gets tough, the tough sell cupcakes. Lovely Confections Bakery, located at 1489 Steele Street Unit C, started celebrating Denver Cupcake Week on February 21; it will run through this Friday. The bakery is marking its first anniversary by offering two cupcakes for $5.280 and one cupca ... More >>

Thanksgiving Dinner Fantasy Draft: What dishes would you pick?

The Thanksgiving dinner table is a sacred place, and we all have a vision of the perfect holiday meal. But what are the most important dishes? If it came down to stuffing or turkey, which would you choose? We can all be thankful such decisions rarely come to pass, for we Americans can always find r ... More >>

Ice Cream Alchemy makes sorbet out of a sow's ear

Sweet Tooth

Get your cupcake fix at a Fresh City Life demonstration.

Shmuck of the Week

Sugar High

Pure Magic

You scream, I scream, we all scream for this ice cream.

Community Unity

KGNU hosts a fundraiser with something for everyone.

We All Scream for —Gelato!

The gourmet gelato graze is heating up in Denver.

Best Finishers -- Chocolate

Triana

Best Ice Cream in a Restaurant

Pesce Fresco

Best Bread Puddings

Trattoria Stella

Best Soft Serve

CJ's Frozen Custard

Best dessert menu

Palettes

Best bread pudding

Radex Bistro