More options and mini variations are of greater interest when it comes to desserts today.

Mini Me Sweets

Dessert samplers, also known as dessert trays, include versions of popular desserts in smaller portions. Menu mentions of dessert samplers have increased 8% on menus over the past two years, per Technomic’s 2024 “Ignite Menu” data. Fine-dining operations are the most likely to offer dessert samplers, with 11% of operators noting they provide this option.

By the Numbers

The term dessert tray shows up on 1.7% of menus, down 6% over the past four years, according to Chicago-based Datassential. Signs of growth are present, though, via some new menu items. The growth of samplers that appear as new menu items is far higher at 419% over the past four years. Some of these mentions include catering options, reports Datassential.

Concept Close-Up: Shaw’s Crab House

Shaw’s Crab House, a two-location concept under the Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants portfolio, goes to market as a casual oyster bar with a formal dining room in an art deco-type environment. While dessert samplers are popular today, that was not always the case, says Bill Nevruz, executive partner at Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants.

“We didn’t always offer samplers,” Nevruz says. The switch to smaller sizes stemmed from the idea of tapping into people’s desire to have something sweet at the end of the meal. “Instead of a full-size dessert, we found there is a market for mini sizes,” Nevruz explains. “We always offered single desserts in mini sizes, but the real magic came when we put them all on one plate; this dessert was born trying to solve a problem.”

Shaw’s dessert sampler includes classic key lime pie, a mini creme brulee, chocolate cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream from a local purveyor, Homer’s Ice Cream in Wilmette, Ill. For creating individual desserts, the restaurant’s chefs utilize convection ovens for cakes and pies, hand-held equipment like mixing wands and torches for creme brulee and dip wells and scoopers for ice cream. 

“The challenge is making sure the desserts are the right size, and it’s not an overwhelming amount when the sampler is completed,” Nevruz notes. “This is in the event that one person orders the sampler; we don’t want it to be too much.” With Shaw’s dessert sampler, the key is executing the plating in the correct order, as the ice cream always needs to be last.

Nevruz notes that there has been an evolution with dessert samplers that has made this menu item more popular in recent years. “Some restaurants have chosen to make these samplers visually stunning, while others have chosen to keep them simple and true to the other desserts,” he says. “At Shaw’s, there is virtue in being classic. We don’t want our samplers to say something different than the rest of our desserts but instead give the same message four times instead of just once as with a single offering.”

Dessert Sampler Equipment and Supplies List

• Bakery deck oven
• Blender
• Cake and pie pans
• Cake fillers
• Convection oven
• Cooling rack
• Dip wells
• Holding & proofing cabinets
• Mixer
• Mixing bowls
• Mixing wands
• Pastry brush
• Rolling pin
• Spatula
• Spreader
• Sifter
• Torches
• Whisk
• Worktables