Summer in the Big Apple is right around the corner, and after a punishing winter with arctic temperatures and record-breaking storms, nothing sounds better than ending a fun day in the sun with a sweet treat.
But rather than a typical Mister Softee cone, NYC dessert shops are offering a slew of jaw-dropping, out-there desserts that will have tourists and locals licking their lips — or maybe pursing them in confusion.
From a towering 24-layer pickle cake to an interactive potted plant dessert that diners “water” with a can of milk tea, former pastry chef at Eleven Madison Park and owner of Lolo’s Pastry, Lauren Day, told The Post that these trending treats — which often appear to be designed for social media as much as to titillate taste buds — are “a reflection of where we are right now.”
“Social media has changed how people experience food — it’s not just about taste anymore,” said Day. “It’s about the full experience: how it looks, how it feels, and how shareable it is … Honestly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. New York has always thrived on being over-the-top, creative and a little unexpected.”
Day emphasized that while an eye-catching sweet treat that has gone viral online can “absolutely take a bakery from being completely unknown to having a line out the door every weekend,” getting people to come in once and converting them to loyal customers are “two totally different things.”
“The focus still has to be on flavor and technique,” said Day. “People might try something because it looks wild or different, but they’ll only come back if it actually tastes good.”
Below, feast your eyes on five unexpected desserts that are sure to tickle your taste buds — and sweeten up your social media feeds.
As if a restaurant moniker like Maison Pickle isn’t out-there enough, this 24-layer pickle-fueled culinary creation may just take the, well, cake. The Upper West Side establishment’s signature dessert features two dozen layers of the creamy green frosting — complete with tiny chunks of pickle rind — and is topped with a garnish of sliced pickles.
As to why Chef Jacob Hadjigeorgis decided to make the cake 24 layers, he told The Post it hits the “sweet spot” in respect to both structure and taste.
“Thin, even layers give you the perfect balance of cake and frosting, and structurally it holds up the way we need it to,” said Hadjigeorgis. “It’s precious like 24k gold and it’s the kind of dessert you can keep coming back to every hour of the day. And let’s be honest — 26 would start to feel a little ridiculous.”
The Maison Pickle team went through three iterations of the cake — adding more and more pickles each time — before officially adding it to their menu.
“We pushed it a little further each time until it clicked,” said Hadjigeorgis. “We landed on a balance where the pickle shows up, but the vanilla keeps it smooth and approachable.”
Sam Goldberg, who runs the NYC food-centric Instagram page @respectthechain, recently reviewed the wacky dessert, giving it two thumbs up.
“It’s got that texture and feel of a sweet cornbread and then it’s like, you put a pickle on top of the cornbread — it really works,” Goldberg said in the vid. “It’s actually really good. It’s very sweet, which I love.”
A slice of the sweet yet tangy treat will cost curious diners $18 — though a full cake of the stuff rings in at a whopping $165.
Butter? Good. Ice cream? Even better. Ice cream dipped in butter? Apparently, it’s a Big Apple warm-weather hit.
Created by Chef Dominique Ansel (who runs Dominique Ansel Bakery and Papa D’Amour), the inspiration for it came after he and his partner took their young children to France for the first time last spring. During this trip, they visited the Isigny Ste. Mère farm in Normandy, where their bakery sources all the butter for their croissants and viennoiserie (French baked goods that lie somewhere between bread and pastry).
Being that the butter is of such high quality and allows Ansel’s staff to give their croissants a “beautiful, flaky texture and flavor” — along with a desire to create something new for summertime — Ansel decided to dip their homemade vanilla bean soft serve into a thin layer of the French butter. And thus, Papa D’Amour’s Butter Vanilla Soft Serve was born.
“We make the soft serve in small batches, so we’ll usually cap it around 100 a day to maintain quality,” Ansel told The Post. “(With) the nice balance of creamy and smooth, lightly sweet and salty, it works really nicely together.”
The $9.50 ice cream, which is topped with fleur de sel French sea salt and has a little mochi at the bottom of the cone, first went viral last August when it was released, but is still a New Yorker favorite, perhaps unexpectedly.
“This is a lot better than I thought it would be,” Sabrina Carey, who runs the Instagram page @fooodforfooodies, said in a vid posted in October of last year. “This is actually delicious. The butter gives it a salty taste. And the fact that this makes it a shell really makes it good.”
Other taste testers were more bewildered and not so impressed.
“I actually really liked it, but the first bite or two had a little too much butter for my liking. It was super rich, and honestly unlike any ice cream I had ever tried before,” Grant Willian, who goes by @grantwillian on Instagram, told The Post. “The vanilla soft serve felt premium, but the cone itself was pretty standard. The mochi at the bottom was a great touch.”
“This is a completely normal cone,” Willian told his followers in a more recent vid of himself trying the treat. “It’s like bougie Dairy Queen.”
Butterfly pea, a pantropical plant found in Southeast Asia, is more often used in high-end cocktails due to its brilliant natural blue dye. But seeing the blue hue in a pie — which Natthaya (Aing) Wongsamphan makes at Chim Chim NYC — is a sweet shock to the system.
“Our family visits Thailand every summer because we want our children exposed to the culture and food,” Wongsamphan told The Post. “On our last trip in summer 2025, we did some experiments by making tea from dried butterfly pea flower, and I carefully grew the recipe for each layer (of the pie) from that point.”
The pie’s five components are coconut meat sauce, butterfly pea sponge cake, coconut meat butterfly pea jelly, coconut fresh cream, and, of course, a buttered cracker crust. Wongsamphan shared that each layer requires separate preparation and has a different, distinct flavor and texture.
“The whole process for one batch usually takes me two days, starting from prepping the pie crust to finishing the cream,” Wongsamphan said.
The price for just one slice is $14 before tax. While Wongsamphan admits it’s on the expensive side, she chalked it up to the extensive labor involved in preparing it and the imported ingredients from Thailand.
“It was so different but in a good way!” Sydney Zandi, who filmed herself trying a slice of the pie on her Instagram page @moan.appetit, told The Post. “The different textures and flavors were also so unique on their own, but combined it was really something amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like that before, in both texture and taste.”
The petite fruit-shaped desserts at Salswee — a French-Asian bakery located on Fifth Avenue in NYC — are nothing short of mesmerizing. While the culinary team affectionately refers to them by the fruits they resemble (they call the one that looks like a banana, “banana”), their technical terms are “fruit-shaped pastries” or “fruit mousse cakes,” and are filled with real fruit compote.
“The inspiration was born out of a desire to create something that is not only delicious but visually striking, bringing a sense of hyper-realistic art into the pastry case,” the Salswee team told The Post.
While the techniques required to achieve the hyper-realistic look and perfect texture are highly intricate and complex and remain “a closely guarded house secret,” Salswee was proud to share that the IRL demand for the viral treat has been “incredibly exciting for our team” — and that they typically sell a whopping 600 pastries a day.
“The viral success on platforms like TikTok and Instagram was beautifully organic,” the Salswee team told The Post. “We actually didn’t partner with any influencers in the beginning. Because of the desserts’ unique and playful appearance, they naturally captured attention online. People are instinctively drawn to how they look, which naturally translates into organic shares online and increased foot traffic in the store.”
The small desserts, which range from $6.95 and $11.95 in price, have indeed captured the palettes of Gothamites and tourists.
“It’s only the first dessert and I understand the hype already,” British digital creator Joshua Kirby recently posted on Instagram as he ranked different variations. “Eating fruits has never been so fun.”
“Tell me those are not the prettiest fruit pastries you’ve ever seen,” Adreyel Eats captioned an Instagram video of himself trying different variations this January.
“That mousse is delightful — one of the best things I’ve tried,” he shared in the vid when trying the mango-shaped dessert. “For sweets, absolutely. Mango, ten out of ten.”
Greenery or gourmet? With this dessert that comes in the form of a potted plant, Spot Dessert Bar diners can be the judge. The multi-location bakery has sold the dessert, which is built in layers to mimic the classic piece of porch decor, for over 10 years, where it has remained one of the bar’s most hot-ticket items. Staff estimates they sell between 500 and 600 “plants” per week.
“It typically includes Oreo ‘soil’ crumble, whipped cream, chiffon cake, strawberries, and edible ‘plant’ details like parsley,” the Spot Dessert Bar team told The Post. “Each component is made separately and then carefully assembled to create both the visual effect and a balanced bite when you dig all the way through.”
To enjoy the culinary creation, guests water the plant with milk tea and then dig in to enjoy all the layers together, making it a “really interactive experience.”
The dessert, which is priced around $15, is shareable (in line with Spotless’ tapas-style concept) and “has become especially popular for catering and events because of how fun and visually striking it is.”
“Many guests also say it brings back a sense of nostalgia, reminiscent of classic dirt-and-gummy-worm desserts, but with a more elevated twist,” said Spot Dessert Bar staff.
In July of 2025, Instagram user @staseatsstuff posted a video where he tried the viral art-turned-food experience.
“They served us a POTTED PLANT,” he captioned the vid.
“Loved visiting this place when I lived in the East Village,” said one commenter.
“THE SPOT for a sweet treat!” @staseatsstuff replied.
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