Minis Make It BIG

Miniature desserts are tempting the taste buds of more and more diners.

By Diane Welland, MS, RD

Despite a fabulous reputation, desserts are a hard sell. After all, following a three- or four-course dinner, how many customers have room for more? Now, pastry chefs have come up with the perfect solution: miniature desserts.

These bite-sized morsels are every bit as good as their regular-size counter-parts. They are mini masterpieces of multilayered tastes, textures and temperatures that are artfully constructed, thoughtfully combined and carefully plated. Yet, they are remarkably versatile, and popular with a growing number of diners.

Just a taste

"Our regular desserts are large, but our minis are tiny, about one-sixth the size of our normal desserts," says Mimi Young, executive pastry chef at Scala's Bistro and three other restaurants at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. "They're for the customer who says, 'I'm too full to eat dessert, but I just want a taste.'"

Tasting is exactly what these small desserts were designed for. Ranging in size from one to three ounces, most are only two or three bites.

"A lot of our customers are watching their calories or carbohydrate intake. They don't want something big, but they'll splurge on these with only a bite or two," says Kirk Parks, pastry chef at Rathbun's in Atlanta.

Parks raises bite-sized sweets to an art form, and has offered a miniatures-only dessert menu since the restaurant opened in May 2004. He specializes in homey dishes with a twist, such as banana/peanut butter cream pie, key-lime cheesecake with strawberry sauce and Butterfinger bread pudding.

At Vong's Thai Kitchen in Chicago, the "World's Smallest Dessert Menu" is printed on the back of a business card and features 11 miniature desserts with Asian flavors. Fruit sushi, mango rolls and passion-fruit souffle? share equal billing with mascarpone strada, a chocolate beignet and Valrhona chocolate cake. This mini menu, offered only at lunch, was created to satisfy the business-lunch crowd, where "everyone wants something sweet at the end of the meal, but no one wants to indulge in something big, and then go back to the office," says Geoff Alexander, director of operations.

Most restaurants, however, have opted to add minis to their existing dessert menus. Juniper, in the Fairmont Hotel, Washington, D.C., recently put five miniature desserts on the menu, each one a study in contrasting flavors, textures and colors.

At Finale Desserterie in Boston, desserts are the main focus. But it wasn't until seven months after the restaurant opened in July 1998 that Nicole Coady, executive pastry chef, decided to add petite selections.

"It all started on Valentine's Day," says Coady. "We wanted to serve something two could share, but something more refined and elegant than a single dessert. So we came up with Temptation for Two."

A chocolate sampler plate features five Valrhona chocolates in five individual desserts: triangle of chocolate hazelnut cake, flourless dark-chocolate coffee cake with honey/caramel gelato, molten chocolate cake with an apricot sauce, nougat mousse in a white-chocolate Florentine cup and assorted baby cookies. Today, the plate has become one of Finale's signature items.

Temptation for Two is joined by two other mini-sampler plates: Fantasia, six or seven tiny delicacies that include a strawberry tart, lemon Bavarian cream topped with sliced blueberries, and a chocolate basket filled with mini sugar cakes; and Seasonal Sampler, with three separate desserts highlighting the season.

Miniature desserts often out-sell other dessert selections, as is the case at Panzano's in Denver, where the Chef's Selection of three miniature desserts is a winner every time. "Most people just want to try a little bit of everything," says Elise Wiggins, executive chef. "For big groups that may not know each other very well, passing around a big dessert may not be as comfortable for people."

When less is more

But, mini desserts do more than just keep customers happy and pastry chefs busy-they make good business sense, too. At Rathbun's, Parks says 80% of customers order dessert, an unprecedented number in most restaurants. "Every other restaurant I've worked at averaged about 30% dessert sales," he says. "It's because of their small size," he says of Rathbun's miniatures. "People can always fit in a taste."

Lower price points also foster more incremental sales. "If they order a dessert for $3.15, many customers are more willing to spend money on an after-dinner drink, like port or ice wine, even Irish coffee," says Parks. "Miniature desserts have definitely boosted our beverage sales."

Both Scala's Bistro and Vong's Thai Kitchen noticed a rise in sales when they added minis. "About 25% to 30% of all our dessert sales are minis," says Young. "These are sales we wouldn't have if we didn't offer smaller versions."

But at Scala's, the increase wasn't automatic. The first time the restaurant served miniature desserts, they were featured on the menu with full-size desserts, with two-column pricing. "We saw a huge drop in our full-size dessert sales," says Young. "Diners were going for the cheaper choice."

But, more important, was guests' reaction to the minis. Many were surprised at the size, and not happy. Young decided to keep the full-sized dessert menu, with single pricing, and put an asterisk next to the items offered as minis, with a brief explanation at the bottom of the menu.

At Vong's Thai Kitchen, servers bring out all the mini desserts on a tray, "to show customers just how big they are," says Alexander. "The visual presentation is a great selling tool, too." He says 70% to 75% of lunchtime customers order at least one dessert that ranges in price from $1 to $1.50 per mouthful.

High profit margins are another bonus for restaurateurs. "Because guests are getting three intensely flavored desserts rather than just one, perceived value is high," says Panzano's Wiggins. "Even with lower prices, these desserts are really good moneymakers, better than the bigger sizes." Panzano's mini desserts cost about a third less than regular-size ones.

Reasonably priced ingredients combined with relatively low labor costs are the main reasons that mini desserts are cost-effective.

"I can make 24 cheesecakes, or I can make 60 miniature cheesecakes," says Aron Weber, pastry sous chef at Juniper. "It's the same batter, and takes the same amount of time."

At Scala's, mini desserts are simply scaled-down versions of popular dessert picks, including variations on crème brûlée, bread pudding, sorbets and the restaurant's two signature items, Bostini Cream Pie--a creamy vanilla custard and orange chiffon cake with chocolate glaze--and Chocolate IV--a rich concoction of four different chocolates in one dessert. "By using smaller scoops, smaller serving containers, like 2-ounce ramekins, and cutting cakes into smaller pieces, we've pretty much got it down," says Young.

Another option is to reduce the quantity of the dish. Vong's Thai Kitchen serves two mango rolls during lunch, but at dinner, the full-size plate holds six. The same is true for the chocolate beignet, which is a single at lunch and part of a quartet at dinner.

Micro managing

Determining the type of miniature desserts to offer largely depends on the time and talent of a venue's pastry chef, the clientele and the restaurant menu. Why restaurants offer them, however, is another story. While miniature-only dessert menus are gaining ground, they're not commonplace yet. Still, those who have them can't stop singing their praises.

"When other restaurateurs ask me about adding miniature desserts to their menu, I say, 'Why bother offering regular-size desserts? You don't have to,'" says Parks.

Some restaurants use petite desserts as a forum for creativity and innovation. At Panzano's, Pastry Chef Wes Ligon changes his three- miniature-desserts menu every day. Juniper uses small sweets to extend its regular dessert menu, with items such as Key-lime parfait with a confit of summer fruits or a Jamaican rum crème brûlée topped with caramelized bananas.

Sometimes, chefs will get inspiration from a certain ingredient. "Chocolate is one of those ingredients," says Jemal Edwards, pastry chef at Brulee at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. "You just have to have a sampler plate for it." Edwards' Chocolate Degustation includes five miniature desserts with five different varieties of chocolate: a rich chocolate brownie, warm chocolate raspberry cake, mocha pot de cre?me, chocolate-mousse tartlet and a small chocolate martini.

But chocolate isn't the only mini to get the royal treatment. Parks frequently adds premium ingredients, such as Iranian pistachios or Marcona almonds, to his small-size desserts. "You don't need a lot to enhance a dish, so it's definitely worth it," he says.

Diane Welland is based in Springfield, Va.