Here are a few other dessert trends with potential quick-serve implications:

Pining for Pop (Culture)—No surprise here: Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers raised on Ding Dongs, Ring Dings, Big Wheels, Moon Pies, Mallomars, Pop Rocks, Ho Hos, Yoo-hoo, and Jujubes are finding a sweet, nostalgic comfort-food refuge from adulthood in unusual settings. Ethel’s Chocolate Lounge, a multi-outlet “chocolate and chitchat” chain with 10 locations in Illinois and one in Las Vegas, offers an “American Pop” chocolate assortment packed with such retro tastes as peanut butter and jelly, “cinna-swirl,” and pudding pie. San Francisco’s popular Myth Café offers Whoopie Pies, Rice Krispies treats, and Twinkies of its own creation. Citizen Cake, the popular white-tablecloth fixture near the city’s downtown arts complex, has spun off the popular Citizen Cupcake take-out outlet on the third floor of the Virgin Megastore just off Market Street. Jack in the Box found success in years past with ice cream shakes and floats that tap into the nostalgia trend, and Sonic’s entire concept is predicated on a yearning for simpler times. But there are many more ways to turn back the clock with desserts—at modern prices, of course.

Making Made-to-Order a Must—Most quick-serve dessert offerings are strictly off-the-shelf affairs: boxed cookies, prepackaged cakes, soft-serve ice cream made from prefabricated mixes. But just as most chains have come to shun the idea of letting burgers and sandwiches sit under heat lamps, it seems high time for desserts to get a fresh makeover. Los Angeles has a handful of popular doughnut shops that allow customers to choose their own dough type, topping, filling, and glaze. Similar sorts of customized treatments can be given to beignets and churros, which, it turns out, can be prepared in exactly the sorts of fryers most chains already have on hand.

Drink it Down—Finally, lest we forget, desserts come in at least three forms: solids (cakes, pies, cookies, and so on), semi-solids (puddings, mousses, and parfaits), and, now more than ever, liquids. Granted, many forms of sweet liquid refreshment we’re seeing happen to contain alcohol. Coco La Ti Da has re-imagined carrot cake as a drink, with vanilla vodka, toffee liqueur, and fresh-juiced carrots served in a martini glass. But given the ready availability of different syrups and flavorings, it might be possible to envision everything from apple strudel to strawberry upside-down cake as drinkable desserts. Done successfully, this could certainly go a long way toward helping quick-serve chains shore up their liquid assets.