WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 25, 2025) – Sure, the autumnal equinox technically marks the official start of fall, but let’s get real – the true kickoff to the season begins when pumpkin spice starts landing on menus. One of the most iconic flavors of all time, pumpkin spice is a flavor consumers anticipate every year. Today, &pizza officially put the PSL on notice with something that will leave pumpkin lovers drooling: Pumpkin Spice Knots.

No one does sweet and savory quite like &pizza, and its new Pumpkin Spice Knots were created to deliver on that promise – and then some. Wrapped inside &pizza’s legendary dough is a warm pumpkin spice filling. Once out of the oven, they’re finished with a sweet vanilla icing and a healthy dash of powdered sugar that will have everyone ready to don their plaid flannels, denim and UGG boots. The new Pumpkin Spice Knots will be available for a limited time while supplies last for $6 at all &pizza locations.

“Let’s be honest, brands hang their hats on pumpkin spice every year, but it’s a rinse-and-repeat cycle that’s become mundane at best,” says Mike Burns, CEO of &pizza. “Boring and expected are a death sentence, so we decided to do something about it. We don’t tip toe around trends – we hijack them.”

Mission-driven to create a more socially conscious, culture-carrying community, &pizza is not “Big Pizza,” and it’s proud to be so. More than just a better flavor/quality ingredients kind of pizza shop, &pizza leads with real actions and an unwavering commitment to being more; so, expect more.

Ready to give the Pumpkin Spice Knots a try? Join &pizza’s rewards club to unlock members-only deals, VIP events, swag and more. Download the app or visit andpizza.com to start stacking your &coins.

For more information and to place an order online, please visit order.thanx.com/andpizza.

Price and participation may vary by location. For a list of all location, please visit andpizza.com/andpizza-locations.

About &pizza

Founded in 2012, &pizza is a mission-driven, culture carrying community dedicated to better flavor, quality ingredients, and community betterment. Proud to differentiate themselves, &pizza is doing more for their workers by providing a livable wage, a socially conscious vision, and real action to help advance real social progress. &pizza has locations across the East Coast in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.

SOURCE: &pizza

The post Are You Punkin’ Me With These Pumpkin Spice Knots? appeared first on Pizza Today.

Vraa explains that A to Z offers at least one new flavor every week – Peanut Butter & Jelly Forever, for example, features strawberry ice cream with peanut butter swirl and caramelized potato chips – with almost no repeats. To accomplish this feat, Vraa and staff are constantly experimenting with new ingredients and flavor combinations. The creamery’s pantry is packed with a variety of chocolates, caramels and cookies that serve as jumping-off points to satiate A to Z’s devoted clientele, who nearly always purchase every carton offered at an impressive $14 per pint.

Pizza ice cream isn’t the A to Z’s first foray into the unusual: During April Fool’s week 2024, the creamery offered sushi ice cream. “We left out the fish,” Vraa says, “but we did all the other things that encompass sushi.” Indeed, I’m Soy Happy features soy sauce ice cream with a ginger cream cheese swirl and wasabi cookie crunch.

Read about pizzeria owners offering inventive, homemade desserts.

In addition to Basically Pizza – the mozzarella ice cream – A to Z’s drop for the first week of April included Almost Pizza, an ice cream that looked like pizza with its cream cheese frosting ice cream base, sugar cookie “crust” and strawberry swirl “sauce.” Over time, Vraa says he’s created many cheese-based ice creams, including cream cheese, goat cheese, mascarpone and ricotta-based sweet treats. A mozzarella ice cream, he warns, might not build the confidence of a novice gelatier. “We’ve been doing ice cream now for five years, and we still had a tough time with it,” he says.

“People that work in a pizzeria know better than anyone how flavor works and how pizza flavor works, but trying to get the right texture of ice cream would be difficult,” Vraa says. “Any soft cheese usually works best because it’ll incorporate with the milk and cream better. If you take a super hard block of cheddar and you’re trying to mix it with milk, that’s not going to emulsify very well.”

Texture troubles aside, Vraa says nailing the tomato swirl was the toughest part of his April Fool’s Day experiment. He blended the San Marzano tomatoes and cooked them down before adding dextrose so the mixture wouldn’t freeze. He then experimented with different amounts of basil, butter, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and a touch of molasses before finding a mixture that was both and savory.

“We tried to lower the sugar and the sweetness level as much as possible while still making it a dessert … but it’s nothing like a pint of chocolate or vanilla,” Vraa says.

For the basil crust crunch, Vraa mixed flour, water and olive oil to create a very high-hydration dough before adding salt, basil and sugar, rolling the dough and creating tiny discs that are sprinkled throughout the final product. While Basically Pizza may not make a repeat appearance, Vraa says his most adventurous consumers loved it. “It was probably one of the most fun pints they’d ever had.”

Get more ideas for summer desserts!

Read the June 2025 Issue of Pizza Today Magazine

This month, we focus on restaurant technology. See what’s hot in tech trends this year. Explore kitchen automation that can save labor costs and improve quality. See how digital menu boards can help you stay on top of menu prices in a fluctuating economy. After a record-breaking Pizza Expo and International Pizza Challenge, we explore pizza trends from the world pizza competition. Find summer dessert inspiration. Discover how to take your side salads to entree status. Go to the June Issue.

The post Pizza Ice Cream? appeared first on Pizza Today.

“Cremolata is usually one of the three flavors. It’s deeply connected to my childhood; something that Italian Americans in the Northeast grow up eating is Spumoni,” he tells Pizza Today. The nostalgia frequently drives Mangieri to include Almond Cremolata on his dessert menu, along with a rotating sorbetto made from juice freshly squeezed each morning.

He believes summer is the best season for dessert, since so many fruits reach peak ripeness during the summer months and can be incorporated into sorbet, gelato, pies and other sweet treats. With around 75 percent of customers at Una Pizza Napoletana choosing to end their meals with dessert, Mangieri is certainly on to something.

Italian Ice in the Rockies

Jason Dascoli toyed with the idea of offering shaved ice made to order at Superior, Colorado-based Rock City Pie & Ice. He realized, however, that each serving of shaved ice would differ based on who was pouring the syrup, leaving the result up to chance.

“It’s like pouring drinks at a bar. Unless you have a system that is monitoring everything you pour, you’re going to get different pours,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be able to control the flavor profile as much as I would like for consistency.”

Dascoli grew up eating Italian ice in Long Island, but the cold dessert is not popular on menus in Colorado, despite a growing number of consumers trying to avoid dairy. “I never could find a good one here, so I decided to make it on my own,” Dascoli says.

After experimenting with an ice cream machine owned by a fellow tenant in a shared kitchen, Dascoli eventually purchased the machine, and he now makes fresh Italian ice every week, with flavors including black cherry, blue raspberry, chocolate, coconut, grape, lemonade, mango, orange cream, root beer, strawberry and wild cherry.

To create the dessert, Dascoli adds flavored syrup to a food-grade container, followed by cold water; then, he folds in sugar and lets the mixture sit overnight in a walk-in cooler until the sugar is completely dissolved. He gives the chilled liquid a good stir before using an old-school batch freezer to complete the process. He says the Italian ice is creamy, sweet and pre-portioned so customers can grab their desired flavor out of a cooler next to the counter.

“It’s more popular all the time. We pretty much sell ice with almost every ticket. When it’s cold out, you’d be blown away by the amount of Italian ice we sell,” he says. “I joke that my favorite ticket is when someone comes in and buys one Italian ice for $5 because it’s unique.”

Learn how one Minnesota ice cream shop made “Pizza Ice Cream!”

Fresh-squeezed Sorbetto

Back in New York City, Almond Cremolata is on the menu at Una Pizza Napoletana almost every night, but the sorbetto (a frozen, dairy-free dessert) changes daily based on which juice is freshly squeezed each morning. Mangieri says he aims to use fruit that is local and in-season, such as New Jersey blueberries, which achieve peak ripeness from mid-June to late July.

As in Colorado, Mangieri says dessert sales remain relatively consistent throughout the year, though he does see an uptick in traffic when the restaurant posts on social media about sorbetto featuring locally sourced fruit. He encourages the serving staff to sample each day’s flavor, so they are prepared to discuss it with customers.

“In summer, we have access to such beautiful fruit at the peak of ripeness. I always believe what creates the best dishes is using the best ingredients at their peak. For example, in New York in the summer, we have berries, melons and stone fruits,” Mangieri says, adding that he occasionally imports Sorrento lemons to create lemon sorbetto and incorporates non-traditional flavors such as corn.

As for the Almond Cremolata, it is served in Italian ice cream cups with homemade whipped cream and a piece of candied orange peel from Sicily. The high-end dessert is accompanied by a small spoon as a nod to the grand cafes of Southern Italy.

KATE LAVIN is Senior Editor of Pizza Today.

Read the June 2025 Issue of Pizza Today Magazine

This month, we focus on restaurant technology. See what’s hot in tech trends this year. Explore kitchen automation that can save labor costs and improve quality. See how digital menu boards can help you stay on top of menu prices in a fluctuating economy. After a record-breaking Pizza Expo and International Pizza Challenge, we explore pizza trends from the world pizza competition. Find summer dessert inspiration. Discover how to take your side salads to entree status. Go to the June Issue.

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Desserts are a tough sell. Diners have filled themselves up on your main attraction, pizza. That is why it’s so important to put the idea of having dessert into their minds before they even begin filling up. There should be mouth-water images of your desserts strategically placed in your restaurant throughout their dining experience. Find out more about marketing desserts.

The desserts themselves shouldn’t be (pardon the pun) cookie cutter. People love making desserts at home so ask yourself this as you evaluate and taste your desserts: does what I’m offering beat anything a customer would make at home? The answer should be yes on every single dessert. The great thing about desserts is they don’t have to be overcomplicated. Some of the best-selling desserts are the simplest. Let’s explore some desserts customers can’t resist eating in the restaurant or taking home for later.

Cookies

This is an easy add onto the dessert menu. Cookies may be made ahead of time and can serve as a great grab-and-go item or packaged promotion. The big questions are which cookie to go with. Similar to pepperoni on pizza, chocolate chip is widely the most popular cookie in the U.S. in study after study. Next, peanut butter, double chocolate chip, shortbread and oatmeal cookies are also popular. A local pizzeria here in Louisville serves corn cookies and they are amazing. They are a cross between sweet cornbread and a peanut butter cookie. You could also go red velvet, sugar, M&M, Snickerdoodle (my favorite), macarons or lemon cookies.

If you are offering cookies, chocolate chip is a no brain. How traditional or unique you make yours is up to you. Here’s a basic recipe below to work from.

Get a classic Chocolate Chips Cookie recipe.

Cake Truffles, Balls or Pops

Cake bites are big with the kids and easy on your kitchen crew. These bite-sized desserts are made of cake mixed with a bit of frosting and dipped in chocolate or white chocolate. You can go wild with type of cake, frosting and dipping flavors. The key with cake balls or pops is the presentation. They should look irresistible. Show them off wherever you can in your restaurant and offer them as a grab-and-go item.

Panna Cotta

This classic Italian custard has experienced a resurgence. It may be because of all the ways you can customize and serve it. Unlike gelatin molds of the 1980s, panna cotta is decadently sleek and presents beautifully. It’s creamy and unique. You can get creative with how you serve it. Top it with fresh fruit like strawberries, raspberries or peaches. You can even pour a fruit-based reduction sauce over the top. Prep is a cinch as it is made ahead in individual portions and ready to serve. 

Get a traditional Panna Cotta recipe. 

Tiramisu

It’s a classic and we will continue to talk about this Italian coffee-flavored dessert. It’s a go-to dessert because people are not likely to make it at home often but if they see it on a menu, they want it. Tiramisu is made ahead in round or sheet pans. It presents beautifully.

Here is a classic Tiramisu recipe to get you started.

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The question of when a restaurant should outsource desserts comes up frequently among owners and operators. While some pizza shops may be scratch-only kitchens or able to handle a full menu load, the reality for many others is that outsourcing some items makes sense for their operations. Some even find a balance in using a combination of in-house and outsourced desserts.

Jessica Hellaine, co-owner and operator of Black Dog Pizzeria in Dublin, Ohio says, “Outsourcing our desserts allows us to focus more on our main dish—our pizzas. It is less work for us that can be used elsewhere, and also helps us to save on space, time and money.  We’re just a takeout/delivery pizzeria and so our resources are limited. And working with local bakers allows us unique marketing opportunities.”

Outsourcing desserts comes down to time, labor and space — elements that many operations find sorely lacking into today’s restaurants. It’s important to always run the numbers. If you are considering outsourcing or the reverse and you want to take desserts in house, it is vital to establish your true costs and your pricing and profit margin goals with each dessert item.

If you are an operation that is deciding whether to incorporate dessert into the menu at all, many operators find it is worth it. Datassentials released its report that 60 percent of operators say that the desserts they offer help to drive profit. That survey also found the best-selling desserts were easy to prep and can be eaten on the go.

If you were at Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, you may have noticed, and even tasted, dozens upon dozens of desserts offered by vendors, including gelato, cannoli, cheesecake, cakes, brownies, cookies and more. You may have also tried vegan and allergy-sensitive specific treats to nut, dairy and gluten allergies. With stringent guidelines for allergy-related foods, outsourcing especially these types of desserts can help you limit cross contamination that can occur in restaurant kitchen environments.

Some desserts are prone to outsourcing — like gelato and ice cream. But, the fact is almost any dessert you can dream up is probably already available through outsourcing. There are many options when outsourcing desserts. You need to evaluate which will work better for your business and more importantly which will sell well with customers. Here are sources where you can find desserts:

• Mainline Distributors. Some advantages to using your established distributor is that you already have a working relationship and delivery processes in place. They also typically have a large catalog of sweet treat options.
• Wholesale Bakeries. Wholesale bakeries have strong distribution network and can accommodate high-volume bulk production.
• Local Retail Bakeries. Since retail bakeries have a consumer direct model, name recognition can be high with diners.

A note on wholesale bakeries and retail bakeries: There are several bakeries that operate in both capacities.

What are you looking for in your desserts?

Knowing the answer to this question will help you find out which direction you want to go with sourcing your desserts. When Hellaine is looking for a dessert, she’s says she is seeking, “reliability and unique ‘cool’ desserts that taste good and travel well. We wanted to offer baked goods that are more interesting than just the standard baked cookies and brownies at a lot of the shops nearby. It’s also important for us to keep whatever food we sell as scratch-made as possible, and to work locally.”

Tasting and testing outsource desserts is just as important as when you research and develop in-house items. Run blind tastings with employees, customers and friends and family. Gather an honest assessment before you add it to the menu. This is no time to order and “hope it sells.”

Going with a Local Bakery

If you already have working relationships with local businesses in your community, buying desserts from a local bakery may be a great option for you to continue supporting fellow local companies. Hellaine uses two locally owned bakers/bakeries to supply desserts — Angie’s Rainbow Cookies and Paisley’s Pie.

“We have worked with Paisley’s Pies for about six years and Angie’s Rainbow Cookies for a little over a year,” she says. “Paisleys Pies we found at a local market and asked if she could make pies to sell in our shop—specifically pies unique and only available to our pizzeria. Angie’s Rainbow Cookies came to us asking if we would be interested in selling her cookies through our shop. She had previously been selling Italian rainbow cookies through her website and the local Farmer’s Market circuit.”

You may need to seek out those relationships. This is where social media, review sites and local news sources come in handy. You can find out who is already making the best desserts in town to see if what they offer would fit your business concept.

Working with local bakeries can also allow for flexibility and specialty products. “We put an order in at the beginning of the week with our providers for how many items we need and what type, and they bring them out a few days later,” Hellaine says. “They also make us monthly ‘specialty’ items that can only be purchased at our shop for that month—usually something holiday or seasonal themed—that we sell alongside their regular fare.”

Partnerships with a local bakery are great for cross promotion. “We co-market with Angie’s Rainbow Cookies,” Hellaine says. “She has an amazing social media presence and by collaborating on stories, feeds, and posts, we have access to each other’s customers. She’s brought a lot of her fans to us and our shop, and we’ve introduced a lot of people to just cookies. It’s a win-win and I think customers really appreciate seeing two local business owners working together and being front and center for their products.“

DENISE GREER is Executive Editor of Pizza Today.

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People might not always save room for dessert, but it’s possible to get them to order one anyway. Pizzeria owners say certain marketing cues can boost dessert sales, even after the customer eats some delicious, filling pizza. It helps to have attractive visuals, and to make the ordering process easy.

For some, it’s a wonder that people even want dessert. “Sometimes we sit and we laugh at our menu,” says Steven Dilley, owner of Bufalina, Bufalina Due, and Palm Pizza in Austin, Texas. “We pull fresh mozzarella and fresh bread, and people order that and then pizza, which is essentially more of that, and we hope they order dessert.”

Dilley says his approach is to have a signature item, which is Vanilla Ice Cream with Sherry. That dessert evolved from Bufalina’s investment in an ice cream machine, the restaurant’s decision to use expensive real vanilla, and a wine vendor’s visit one day after a sales call at another eatery. “He ordered ice cream and poured sherry on it that he had brought,” Dilley says. “We all tried it, and it’s been on the menu ever since.”

Also on the menu is Olive Oil Cake. The cake was one of the original desserts when Bufalina opened in 2013. The restaurant took the cake off the menu in 2016, then reintroduced a new version when the chef produced a different iteration. The cake is not only delicious on its own, Dilley says, but serves as a canvas for seasonal fruits such as summer berries and peaches or autumn apples. The changes are often inspired by produce available from a local farm, and the eatery announces the various offerings on social media.

Just as the seasonal fruits change, so does the availability of the cake itself. Bufalina takes the cake off the menu occasionally, and then brings it back, letting people know through Instagram that the popular dessert has returned.

Visual cues

Social media can play a role in generating excitement about desserts. “They are included in our social media presence,” says Samantha Monterosso, brand manager for Dough Counter in Denver. “Obviously people love to see pizza on your social page, and they want to see extras too.”

While high-quality food photos can help increase online orders of desserts, at the restaurant it helps to have an appetizing display. “Dessert is an order with your eyes,” Monterosso says. “Remember when you went out for a nicer dinner in the 80s or 90s and they brought out the dessert tray? You were getting excited for cheesecake before your appetizer got to your table.”

Dough Counter, from the family that owns the two-location Marco’s Coal-Fired in Denver, opened in September 2023. The cake slice display case is one of the first things customers see when they enter the space. The case shows slices of Bumpy Cake, an iconic Michigan layer cake that features a fudge frosting poured over ribbons of vanilla buttercream, creating bumps. There are also Celebration Cake Slices, and for a limited time, Triple Chocolate Mousse slices.

The appearance of buttercream, sprinkles, and chocolate evoke nostalgia, a big driver of dessert sales. While Dough Counter occasionally offers decorated cakes such as for Halloween, the pizzeria typically sticks with the three different layer cakes. That simplifies operations, and helps the eatery establish its brand. “We’re not going to do the honey lavender lemon zest,” Monterosso says. “Others have French bakery in their lane. We are Bumpy Cake lane, Celebration Cake lane.”

Another driver of post-pizza dessert sales, perhaps counterintuitively, is that the slices are oversized. “For pizzerias, something sharable is nice,” Monterosso says. “We market it as to share, or have some tomorrow, that sort of thing.” Dessert sales are higher during weekends when customers are in treat mode.

Online ordering

About 65 to 70 percent of the pizzeria’s orders are takeout or delivery, so it’s important to have the right packaging for the large cake slices. “We have many guests whose only interaction with Dough Counter is online and they never come in,” Monterosso says. “Little things like giving them the right size container matter.”

Customers tend to order dessert more often when they order online, says Antonio Gambino, co-founder of Tono Pizzeria + Cheesesteaks, with six locations in Minnesota. “Specifically the cookies, they can just click and boom, it’s in their bag,” he says. “They have more time to look at it.”

When people order at the counter, they might feel rushed by the prospect of other customers waiting to order, so they skip dessert. That might change, as Tono Pizzeria + Cheesesteaks recently installed two ordering kiosks at one of the stores. Not only is it easier to order by tapping on a screen, but the system is set up to ask the customer if they want to add cookies or ice cream to the order. Although the location still has an area to order at the counter from a human, the technology relieves the staff from having to do a verbal upsell, and frees them up to perform other tasks.

Other selling points

Tono Pizzeria + Cheesesteaks offers two desserts, cookies and ice cream. Both are sourced from local vendors, a detail that helps sales. “People love to support local businesses,” Gambino says. “We don’t brand it as our cookie or ice cream. We brand it as theirs.” The cookies are from Sweet Troo Vi, a vegan bakery that is based in the Twin Cities and sources ingredients locally. The ice cream is from Minnesota Dairy Lab, and is available in flavors such as Heath Bar, Cookies & Cream and Vanilla.

The cookies are also on display at the stores, which helps boost impulse sales. People grab a cookie and add it to their purchases as they stand at the counter, and eat it after their meal or later in the day, as a snack at the office or at home. Because of their portability, cookies outsell ice cream, but both are popular among families. “If they have kids, they say, ‘All right, you ate your dinner, you can have a cookie and/or ice cream,” Gambino says.

NORA CALEY is a freelance writer who covers small business, finance and lifestyle topics.

The post Marketing Desserts appeared first on Pizza Today.

Mike Bausch, owner, Andolini’s Pizzeria

Dessert is an easy incremental revenue item that every restaurant should advantageously seek to sell. Because desserts typically have sugar as the primary ingredient, they’re incredibly cheap and highly profitable.

So the goal should not be to merely have a dessert menu but rather to maximize the exposure and likelihood of selling dessert to as many customers as possible. To do this the approach must be procedural, not random.

Here’s how you increase that likelihood. First and foremost, come up with a long-winded name for every one of your desserts. Instead of basic cookies, they should fulfill a name like double-chunk, half-baked smoreos cookies, which is unique and entices the purchaser. The goofier and more unique the better. At the end of a meal, people also think, “I’m full, and I don’t want to spend any more money.” After a customer has eaten is the exact worst time to offer them dessert. If you want to sell desserts at a higher rate, you need servers coming by after they take the meal order before the food arrives. A pop-in to the table with this statement works great, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you about ……..” And then detail each item by name. It would be even better if they could swing it by visually, showing off the actual dessert items, to let the people start to think about it.

Ideally, you have a very hard-to-make dessert, and the server HAS to make this early sale because: “We have a limited amount.” Or “It takes more time to make this item. If you want it, I need to get it going now.” So you build exclusivity and intrigue at the most likely time of wanting to purchase it and secure the order while the customer is still hungry. After that, it’s just about delivering on the promise.

Now, these tips work great for a dine-in restaurant experience. However, if it’s on the phone or at a counter, that person could still sell better than a computer if they position it and ask about it like an invitation to a party, not an additional priced item. Case in point, “Would you like to spend $5.95 for cookies also?” Or, “Extra, double-chunk cookies with that ???!” Getting the customer to say, “Sure, why not?” As opposed to, “I don’t know if I want to add any more to this order.”

For online ordering, the ideal is to have a pop-up box, like the big boys do, after getting their main entree items in the cart. If your online portal does not have that ability, then if nothing else, have a great description and a fantastic, well-photographed version of your desserts to increase the likelihood of purchase. Do these tips, and you’ll see your dessert sales exponentially increase.

The post Mike’s Monthly Tip: You’ve Never Had Dessert. appeared first on Pizza Today.

“Pick me up!” Sure, that’s what your kids said when they were small, but it’s also the literal translation of tiramisu, because it gives you a “pick me up” from the coffee that is sweetened and soaked into the sponge cake or ladyfingers.

This smooth and creamy dessert is typically layered with a whipped cream and mascarpone cheese, coffee-soaked ladyfingers, sometimes with liquor and then topped with cocoa. Its popularity just continues to grow and is loved by many.

By the time our customers are done with their meal, they’re usually too full to consider dessert. The easiest selling point of tiramisu is that it is not heavy like most desserts. As a chef who loves to do as much in-house as possible, about seven years ago I began making all my own desserts. Although it’s not the traditional mascarpone cheese used in tiramisu, I experimented with using a super fine, super smooth ricotta. I immediately got rave reviews, so that’s how I’ve been making it ever since. Over the years, I’ve also come up with some of my own variations of this creamy concoction and they have all been a tremendous success.

Let me share how I make my version of tiramisu and then share the variations you’ll want to try and then even come up with your own innovations. This is probably the easiest recipe you’ll find, and there are no eggs in it which provides a safer dessert to serve.

I make three 9-inch-by-15-inch pans at a time, which yields 45 pieces (15 3-inch-by-3-inch pieces per pan).

First, whip together three quarts of heavy cream and one pound confectioners’ sugar. Fold in three pounds of super fine ricotta. As a stabilizer and my secret weapon, I then fold in three small boxes of instant white chocolate pudding mix. Your cream is now complete and ready to assemble.

I like to line my pan with parchment paper so it’s easy to pop out once it is frozen.

Brew one pot of coffee with double the amount of coffee grinds to give you a stronger batch of coffee, or brew about a dozen shots of espresso and mix the hot coffee with a quart of sugar. Whisk it until the sugar is dissolved. If you wish to add liquor, add it to your sweetened coffee.

I use two boxes of ladyfinger cookies per pan. Lay your ladyfinger cookies in two rows in the bottom of your pan so the bottom of the pan will be covered with cookies. With a ladle, coat the cookies with the coffee mixture enough to soak into the cookie, but not too much to leave a pool of sweet coffee in the bottom.

Cover the soaked cookies with a layer of the cream mixture and then turn your pan 90 degrees and put a second layer of cookies in three rows covering the layer of cream. Soak the cookies in the exact same fashion as the first layer. Top the cookies with cream so it meets the top of your pan. You should have exactly enough cream to make three 9-inch-by-15-inch baking pans that are two inches tall.

Sprinkle cocoa over the top. Cover them with film wrap and freeze them. Once they are frozen, take them out of the pan and place each pan on a cutting board. Mark them first to get three-piece rows across by five-piece rows down and then cut them with a hot knife to give you a clean cut. You can plate them while frozen and let them thaw on the plate or in the container you will sell them in for the best presentation.

Now that you’ve got that all figured out, let me tell you how I’ve gone rogue and gotten creative with this very process. It started in the fall a couple of years ago when I had a pumpkin latte. To make the pumpkin latte tiramisu, I simply added a can of pumpkin, a tablespoon of cinnamon, tablespoon of ginger and two teaspoons of nutmeg to the regular cream mixture recipe. Then instead of the cocoa on top, I lightly sprinkled cinnamon on top. All other assembly procedures stay exactly the same. This dessert blows pumpkin cheesecake out of the water and, frankly, is easier to make.

Now, peanut butter and jelly tiramisu may be a bit of a stretch, but trust me when I say this is an attention grabber. “For the kid at heart” is the slogan I used to get all PB&J lovers to try this one. I thinned out some melba (raspberry) sauce and soaked the cookies with that and then incorporated some peanut butter into the regular cream mixture. I topped it with crushed peanuts instead of cocoa. Everything else remains the same.

Banana pudding is very popular in the South, so I made a banana pudding tiramisu. I used instant banana pudding instead of the white chocolate, incorporated some freshly sliced bananas to the cream mixture and replaced the ladyfingers with vanilla wafers. I used crushed wafers for the top.

Last but not least, key lime tiramisu is a unique twist on traditional tiramisu. I incorporate some key lime juice or extract to the cream and use three layers of graham crackers instead of soaked ladyfingers. Crushed graham crackers on top make it perfect.

Try them all. Your customers and your cash register will thank you!

Jeff Freehof owns The Garlic Clove in Evans, Georgia. He is a frequent contributor to Pizza Today and a speaker at International Pizza Expo.

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