Sweets Treats in 417-Land

You’ll Go Bananas

Banana Cake
St. Michael’s Sports Bar & Grille, 301 South Avenue, Springfield
You know how McDonald’s is known for its fries, and Dunkin Donuts is known for its coffee? Anyone who’s tried the banana cake at St. Michael’s would agree that this spot could go global with this homemade dessert. Two thick layers of the moist, flavor-packed cake are generously covered with a sweet homemade buttercream, making a towering wonder that’ll cause your jaw to drop with utter amazement. People who don’t even like bananas still love this cake. It’s that good!

Sour Cream Surprise

White Almond Sour Cream Cake
Spring Creek Tea Room, 107 South Third St., Ozark
At any time, Spring Creek Tea Room has at least half a dozen cakes up for grabs (plus an array of cheesecakes and pies). The white almond sour cream cake is always a favorite. Three layers of cake are separated with house-made fluff icing—a delicious concoction made of cream cheese and Cool Whip—and then topped with scratch-made raspberry sauce. It’s a fluffy, gooey, messy treat.

King of the Cheesecakes

Featured Cheesecake
Nonna’s Italian Café, 306 South Ave., Springfield
Mmm, cheesecake! Did you know this universally amazing dessert is even better at Nonna’s Italian Café? Both locations feature monthly homemade cheesecakes that are carefully created by their respective chefs, and they’re always divine. Past mouthwatering concoctions include chili mango, snickerdoodle and balsamic strawberry. Be sure to stop in and try the flavor of the month!

Triple Delicious

Coconut Tres Leches Cake
Café Cusco, 234 E. Commercial St., Springfield
Tres leches cakes are made by soaking sponge cake in three milks. We love the variety at Café Cusco that’s made with angel food cake soaked in sweetened condensed milk, coconut milk, evaporated milk and apricot nectar. A plop of fresh whipped cream topping makes it even more decadent, and it’s finished off with a light sprinkle of cinnamon. 

1. Collaborate
Shawn and his team at Askinosie Chocolate team up with Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman from A Beautiful Mess to come up with a new, delicious bar.

2. Taste Test
Several rounds of taste tests are performed to pinpoint the perfect flavor combination. Crunchy coconut, sugar and rich chocolate? Winner!

3. Choose the Beans
The cocoa bean flavor is affected by the soil and climate of where it's grown, so choosing the right bean for the bar is crucial. To balance out the sweetness of the coconut, beans from Tanzania are chosen for the Toasted Coconut CollaBARation Bar.

4. Harvest and Ship
Once the beans are harvested, they are carefully packaged and shipped by boat to the United States.

5. Clean
To remove any unwanted particles from the beans, the are cleaned under a destoner, which sucks up dirt and debris.

6. Roast
The roasting process is a big player in a bean's end flavor. To get that dark chocolate richness, the beans in the coconut bar are dumped into a giant roaster and cooked at high temperatures for short periods of time until they are just right.

7. Hull
Once the beans are cool, they head to the winnower, where the hard shell is removed, leaving the cocoa-rich nib exposed. The shells are then sent to Assumption Abbey in Ava where they are used as mulch.

8. Make the Liquor
The nibs are ground into paste, which is known as liquor in the chocolate world. That delicious liquor is then refined into a liquid and ready to be made into chocolate.

9. Make the Cocoa Butter
One of the key ingredients in Askinosie Chocolate is the homemade cocoa butter. This is what gives the bars a silkier mouth feel. To do this, the liquor is pumped into a press and squeezed till all the fat (cocoa butter) drips out. A dry cake of cocoa, or cocoa powder, is left.

10. Make the Bar
To make the Toasted Coconut CollaBARation Bar, another batch of beans from Tanzania are roasted, cooled and hulled. Then they are mixed with melted liquor along with crunchy coconut sugar and cocoa butter.

11. Mold
After taste testing the rich chocolate to make sure it is spot-on, the liquid chocolate is poured into molds, dusted with toasted coconut and cooled before being packaged and devoured by coconut-loving chocoholics everywhere.

Crunchy

Churros 
Tortilleria Perches, 1601 W. Sunshine St., Springfield
Calorie counters be damned! Especially when Old Man Winter settles in, there’s nothing like an order of churros to melt away our blues. Two doughy breadsticks are piped full of diced apples and fried to perfection before being nestled under a scoop of cold ice cream that oozes its way into every crook of the churro. Topping the whole delicious mess is a drizzle of chocolate syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar. Not sweet enough? You can always order yours with whipped cream. 

Crispy

Sopapilla
Maria’s Mexican Restaurant, 406 South Ave., Springfield
This treat is simple but oh so delicious. Thick flour tortillas are dunked briefly in the deep fryer, and then while they’re puffed up and still hot, they’re drizzled with sugary honey and sprinkled with warm cinnamon.

Gooey

Hurts Donuts Bread Pudding
The Order, 305 E. Walnut St., Springfield
The true star of this bread pudding is its main ingredient: Hurts Donuts. Made fresh every day, unglazed yeast donuts make their way to the kitchen at The Order where they are cubed and mixed with a sweet cream mixture of vanilla, eggs and cinnamon. The resulting muddy mess looks more like a crème brûlée gone wrong, but this bread pudding is nothing short of a triumph. Baked for an hour and cut into large portions, the confection is scooped into a hot skillet and topped with warm Askinosie Chocolate ganache and melted salted caramel. 

Sizzling 

Mexican Brownie
Cantina Laredo, 1001 Branson Landing Blvd., Branson
Are all brownies delicious? Yes. But what makes this cocoa-packed bad boy especially tasty is its bake time. Six hours. That’s right. Loaded down with crunchy pecans, thick walnuts, rich fudge and morsels of semi sweet chocolate chips, this decadent brownie batter is poured into a skillet and popped into the oven for six hours until it’s ready to be devoured. Arriving at your table sizzling hot, the brownie is crowned king of the desserts with a coronet of vanilla ice cream and a splash of brandy butter sauce. 

Sugary

Cookie Dough Wontons
Peking House, 3108 E. Sunshine St., Springfield
Cooks at Peking House take a regular old wonton wrapper, load it full of chocolate chip cookie dough till the dumpling nearly bursts at the seams and then fry it until warm and crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. Drizzled with chocolate syrup and powdered sugar, four wontons come per order, which makes this dessert perfect for sharing. 

Sticky

Cinnamon Knots
The Big Slice, 1454 A E. Sunshine St., Springfield
Warning: This dessert is not on the menu. You have to swing by this pizza joint in order to know about the warm, buttery cinnamon knots these guys can whip up. Made with homemade dough that’s prepared fresh every day, these chewy bundles are rolled in cinnamon and sugar, and packaged six to an order. These little treats are only made better when dunked deep into a pool of the homemade icing that comes on the side. Yes, you can also spoil your appetite with one of The Big Slice’s cinnamon rolls, which are on the menu, but why do that when you can be part of this delicious cinnamon-coated club where good things definitely come in small packages?

Coconut Cream Pie
Ruby Lena’s Tearoom & Antiques, 224 W. Main St., Branson
The Crust: A thick homemade pie crust is the perfect flaky base for this pie.
The Inside: A layer of sweet coconut cream is topped with fluffy whipped cream and a sprinkle of toasted coconut.
The Taste: Light and creamy, this classic custard pie is the perfect fix for your sweet craving.

Sweet Little Apple Pie 
Market House Cafe & Bake Shop, 113 N. Second St., Ozark
The Crust: Made with lots of butter and shortening and a dash of baking powder, this double pie crust is firm enough to stand up to its gooey filling.
The Inside: A mix of thick apple slices, cinnamon, lemon juice, brown sugar and butter makes up the sweet filling.
The Taste: Served as individual pies instead of slices, these mini treats have just enough apple filling to balance out the flaky double crust.

Fried Pecan Pie
Ronda’s Fried Pies, available at Farmers Market of the Ozarks, 2144 E. Republic Rd., Springfield
The Crust: Made with coconut oil and fried in coconut oil, these hand pies have some real bite to them. 
The Inside: This seasonal favorite has no preservatives and is made with sweet pecan filling that features sugar in place of corn syrup.
The Taste: There’s a melt-in-your-mouth quality to these pies, and they pack a rich caramel flavor a bit friendlier to your waistline thanks to the lack of shortening.

Peppermint Swirl Pie
Big R’s BBQ, 1220 E. 15th St., Joplin
The Crust: Not too dense and not too flaky.
The Inside: The base of this pie is a sweet vanilla cream that’s hit with a dash of pink peppermint flavoring, which gives it that lovely swirl.
The Taste: The peppermint swirl pie is a holiday favorite that can be ordered in advance year round. Creamy and sweet with a pop of bright peppermint flavor, this cream pie is worth every indulgent bite. 

Banoffee Pie
London Calling, 836 N. Glenstone Ave., Springfield and inside Battlefield Mall
The Crust: The classic flour and shortening crust is replaced with a graham cracker base
The Inside: A layer of toffee covers the crust and is topped with thin slices of banana and homemade whipped cream with a sprinkle of cocoa powder on top.
The Taste: Both sweet and savory, these mini pies are good enough to share.

Dessert Pizza
Rocco’s Italian Kitchen, 834 E. Division, Springfield; 4315 S. National Ave, Springfield
The Crust: Rocco’s regular pizza dough is used as the base of this pie.
The Inside: Vanilla pudding, cinnamon streusel and a layer of semisweet chocolate chips and powdered sugar combine to make a pizza pie like no other.
The Taste: This is a chocolate-lover’s dream. The chocolate chip filling melts down and spreads out through the pie until every inch is a mix of vanilla, chocolate and cinnamon.

Pear Ginger Pie (available seasonally)
Fork & Crust Pie Company

Cranberry Walnut Muffin
Start your day off with a sweet and filling Cranberry Walnut Muffin at MudHouse Coffee (323 South Ave., Springfield). Mudhouse takes its regular whole wheat muffin batter and adds a heavy amount of walnuts and cranberries. Baked fresh every morning, these morning heavyweights sell out quickly.  

Pecan Rolls
Part of what makes the Pecan Rolls at Red Barn Café & Hen House Bakery (107 W. Mt. Vernon Blvd., Mount Vernon) so delicious is their simplicity. A regular dense cinnamon roll is caramelized and topped with crunchy pecans. Breakfast is served!

Caramel Cinnamon Rolls 
The Caramel Cinnamon Rolls at Tea Bar & Bites Bakery and Café (621 S. Pickwick Ave., Springfield) have become so popular that you have to arrive early to snag one on Saturdays. This two-day process uses an oatmeal bread recipe owner Colleen made into caramel rolls for her kids when they were little. Denser and chewier than a normal cinnamon roll, these bad boys are drowned in homemade caramel sauce and shucked out to early risers. 

Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donut
Coffee and donuts. Is there a better combination? And if you want a donut that holds up to a hot cup of joe, go with the Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donut at St. George’s Donuts (3012 S. National Ave., Springfield; 3628 E. Sunshine St., Springfield). While the donut crew at this local shop doesn’t give out any of its secret ingredients, it doesn’t take much to know that this glazed favorite is a winner. 

Cinnamon Rolls
Large and in charge, the Cinnamon Rolls at Amycakes Bakery (1108 E. Walnut St., Springfield) are soft and packed with warm cinnamon. The best part, besides the buttery layers of dough, is the icing, which slowly works its way deep into the folds of the roll. These cinnamon rolls are made on Fridays and always available to be ordered in advance.

Fancy Waffles
Once you have your drink of choice in hand, it’s time to choose a late-night snack. And what better way to start your night, or maybe your morning, than with a waffle from Scotch & Soda (310 South Ave., Springfield)? Slightly sweet, this batter is thick enough to hold up to the barrage of delicious add-ins including Nutella; bacon and chocolate chips; black forest ham and white cheddar cheese; or peanut butter, banana and honey. Take your pick Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 p.m. to close and during brunch on Sundays.

Affotago (summer menu)
Eurasia Coffee and Tea, Springfield

• Two freshly poured shots of Eurasia's featured espresso
  
• Two scoops of vanilla ice cream
• A creamy pool of vanilla-espresso deliciousness (once the espresso melts the ice cream!)

A homemade Butter Pecan Ice Cream cone
Hannah’s Ice Cream Parlor at Silver Dollar City, Branson

• A creamy ice cream base made with milk, cream and sugar that’s frozen in an old-fashioned ice cream maker with ice and rock salt
• Plenty of chunks of butter-roasted pecans
• A sweet cake cone that adds plenty of crunch but is subtle enough to let the flavors of the ice cream shine  

Andy's Ozark Turtle
Andy's Frozen Custard, various locations in southwest MO

Bobcat Crunch Ice Cream
The Keeter Center, Point Lookout

• A rich chocolate ice cream base made on-site
• Bits of house-made "turndown cookies", which have a chocolate chip-oatmeal base
• Bites of pecans and almonds