BENGALURU: Eateries in the city have discovered a sweet new way to tackle two of the current top concerns — rising health consciousness and reducing wastage. The big idea is mini desserts. They have all the elements of a regular dessert but in a downsized version.
From bite-sized cupcakes, 10-ml kulfi pops, petite ice-cream cones to itty-bitty mudcakes — one-bite wonders are trending over whalesized pastries to finish off a meal at restaurants, private parties and personal gifting space.
“Mini is more,” says Dineet Dadu, director of Anand Sweets. She likes to send mini Indo-fusion desserts like Tiramisu barfi as gifts during festivals. She notes how guests are unable to save room for desserts and hesitatingly nibble at a cake and waste more. “Bite-sized desserts give you a variety to choose from and yet limit calorie intake and ultimately reduce wastage,” says Dadu.
According to Pravesh Pandey of Big Brewsky in Sarjapur, small is the new big. His menu features little matcha gateaux and petite mudcakes. “One always feels less guilty eating ‘just one bite’ of a dessert,” notes Pandey.
The Sriracha menu has bite-sized ice-cream cones served with organic honey and sesame seeds. It’s just a tenth the size of a regular cone ice cream and comes in scoops of fancy flavours like litchi, avocado and jackfruit.
“Making downsized desserts is laborious. Small requires more effort as they need special molds and better finishing,” says Chef Vikas Seth.
But the effort has paid off as mini dessert is also the new social media darling. The potential of this novel segment convinced Seth to introduce a menu like mini avocado barfi, red-velvet Mysore pak, paan macaron and dainty 10-ml kulfi pops at the by-invite club BLVD.
“Mini desserts account for 40% of our pastry sales,” says Vinesh Johny, award-winning executive pastry chef of Lavonne. Black Forest entremet, carrot & yoghurt petit gateaux and mini cheesecake are best-sellers.
After witnessing increasing demand for custom-made mini desserts by private parties since a year, Smoor chocolate lounge is planning to make it a permanent feature on its menu.
Chief marketing officer Kanchan Achpal says, “From 1-2 mini dessert orders per month a year ago, we get about 8 today. Takers are mostly corporates and HNIs who are hosting private parties.”
Health cafés have joined the bandwagon too. Mimansa Tree wellness café in Kormangala dishes out mini ayurvedic raw balls made of dates and dry fruits for adventure enthusiasts to conveniently carry in their bags.
Go Native in Jayanagar has baked yoghurt in cutting-chai glasses and Karnataka special halubai platter with baked mini sweets made of ragi, rice and jaggery.
