Don Pablo’s restaurants feature the Chocolate Volcano made of chocolate cinnamon cake surrounded by a pool of molten chocolate butter sauce and topped with vanilla bean ice cream. Jackson of Dessert Alert has had tremendous success with her updated take on the whoopie pie using various flavored crème fillings such as raspberry crème and preserves, or peanut butter and jelly inside the chocolate cake.
There’s also plenty of potential in healthful desserts, especially those with no sugar added, Katzman says. “With so many Americans, unfortunately, dealing with diseases like diabetes, sugar-free desserts have really resonated with consumers. The key is to keep the taste and the experience.”
Dipping into Desserts
Based on all the excitement in the market, restaurants that don’t have a chocolate dessert on the menu might want to rethink their positions. “A menu without a chocolate dessert has a big hole,” says Katzman of Sara Lee.
But the business considerations are very real and can’t be ignored: Chocolate desserts can be labor-intensive and the price of cocoa might make it too cost-prohibitive to realize a return on the investment. Price fluctuations in the cocoa market last fall—costs fell from a peak of $3,000 per tonne in July 2008 to $2,771 at press time—got trend analysts talking about the business possibilities. But concerns about a potentially damaging crop disease that might hit the Ivory Coast, the largest global supplier of cocoa, has some worried that supplies might fall short, causing cocoa prices to rise once again.
Still, if restaurant owners are creative, they can have their chocolate cake and eat it, too. Experts say there are a number of ways restaurants can add chocolate desserts to their menus without taking too much of a risk, or making a major investment of time or money.
Take a dip. Sides, sauces, dips, and drizzles are great ways to introduce chocolate into your desserts without spending a lot of money. Fruits or pretzel rods dipped in chocolate are just two easy ways to make it work. “Warm up a cookie and add a side of dipping sauce and you’ve got a whole new dessert experience,” Jackson says.
Think small. “The bite size is the right size now,” Jackson says. Mini-desserts offer a way to provide variety and portability to the customer. “Smaller desserts keep labor and other costs down,” Katzman says.
Pittsburgh Blue in Maple Grove, Minnesota, has a two-bite turtle cake and a one-scoop hot fudge sundae on its menu. Bank Restaurant in Minneapolis has a changing menu of shot-glass desserts including chocolate cake and mousse, and The Independent, also in Minneapolis, offers shooters of brownie sundae and chocolate mousse.
Create a signature dessert. Many restaurants are creating and adding signature chocolate desserts to their menus, Caranfa says. They give the appearance of added value, she says, something that’s special to that restaurant. Gotham Bar and Grill in New York City, for example, has something called a Gotham Chocolate Cake on its dessert listings and it’s served with pumpkin ice cream.
Romance your dessert menu. Storytelling has become a popular way to sell desserts on many menus. “The era of the low calorie and no calorie is a thing of the past,” Caranfa says. “Now restaurants are playing into the sexiness and fantasy of chocolate by creating a story, a positive message around a dessert that makes it even more appealing.”
For example, The English Grill in Louisville, Kentucky, has a Praline Chocolate Striptease on its menu—dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate mousse, chocolate sauce, and seasonal berries flamed with rum.
Piggyback on popular brands. Using branded candies that consumers trust in your desserts can give consumers confidence that it’s a dessert they know they will like. “It brings a relevancy to the dessert, an excitement that consumers feel when they see something familiar on the menu,” Katzman says.
Opt for convenience. Purchasing pre-sliced desserts, like Sara Lee’s pre-sliced pies, helps restaurants save time and labor and also minimizes waste. Concepts can also contract out to facilities that will make the desserts so restaurants can save on the labor. “The expertise doesn’t have to be in-house,” Jackson says. “You can look to those who specialize.”
Make it a package deal. A number of restaurants are giving consumers the option of picking an appetizer, main course, and dessert for one price. “The bundling concept is very viable, especially now with the state of the economy,” Katzman says. Including a chocolate dessert as part of the package can not only drive more dessert sales, but also offer a way to spread out the cost of the more expensive items.
Consider the alternatives. Chocolate doesn’t have to be limited to desserts. Chocolate-inspired cocktails like a chocolate martini, made with Godiva liquor, sipping syrups, hot cocoa, and other thick chocolate drinks can also be a boon to your menu. “Starbucks was really on to something with its adult hot cocoa drinks like the espresso truffle,” Jackson says. “It’s like chocolate sin in a cup.”
Future Cravings
As you decide which way to go with your chocolate creations, be sure to consider the demographics of your market. Surveys show that young adults (18–34 years old), the affluent, and women are particularly attracted to the chocolate trend. “Twenty-somethings are getting far more daring and have much more sophisticated palates, so they’re willing to try new things,” Jackson says.
Katzman adds that in Sara Lee’s proprietary studies, he's found that most premium chocolate skews a little younger, although dark chocolate skews a little older. But in general, the options are wide open.
“You definitely have room to be adventurous,” Caranfa says. In fact, she predicts that in the next year, chocolate dessert boundaries will expand to include red velvet cake, which has a mild cocoa flavor. “I call it the new dark chocolate,” Caranfa says, explaining that the trend, which started in wedding cakes, has been trickling up from casual dining restaurants such as California Pizza Kitchen and Chili’s to more upscale establishments. The Claim Jumper restaurant chain, for example, has Red Velvet Cupcakes on its dessert menu, which are topped with butter cream cheese vanilla bean frosting and served with a side of molten bourbon chocolate sauce. Clearly, with chocolate, there’s more than one way to satisfy a sweet tooth.