When it comes to dining out, we all know someone who skips starters and sides to save room for dessert! Who can blame them? Indulging in a tasty dessert truly is the best way to finish off your meal and round off an evening with your loved ones. If you manage a cafe or restaurant, this is something you need to consider! Diners love dessert, and the proof is in the pudding. In 2017 alone, the number of ice cream parlours opening in the UK rose by 20%!
How can you make sure you’re getting your slice of the cake? By creating the ultimate dessert menu for your restaurant! As the UK’s leading wholesale dairy suppliers, we at Freshways have developed great insight into what some of the best cafes and restaurants in the country are doing to impress their diners and keep them coming back for more.
Five top tips for creating the ultimate dessert menu, according to wholesale dairy suppliers
Ready to satisfy any sweet tooth? From making sure your desserts are produced with the freshest ingredients, to extending your pudding menu to cater to all allergens and dietary requirements, here are our top tips to creating a winning dessert menu.
Offer freshly made desserts
To truly impress your diners, swap pre-packaged goods for freshly made desserts! Sweet treats that have been lovingly made by your cooking staff will look and taste exquisite and will help to set your establishment apart from any others. No other cafes or restaurants will have your exact recipe, style or menu!
What’s great about offering homemade desserts is that your chefs can add their own twist to classic dishes! Maybe you have cooking staff from all over the world who want to introduce sweets and puddings from a wide range of cuisines, or perhaps you’ve recently hired someone who specialises in making pastries. Asking your chefs to inject their influence into your dessert menu is a great way to add that extra special touch!
To make sure your desserts taste their very best, make sure to order the ingredients from wholesalers you trust to deliver only the highest-quality ingredients, such as Freshways! Whether you require wholesale cream for scones and jam or tasty eggs for meringue and baked cakes, you can rely on us to supply what you need for an unbeatable dessert menu.
Carry on the theme of your main menu
If your restaurant specialises in a particular cuisine, it makes sense to match the desserts you offer to your starter and main course menus. For instance, if you run an Italian restaurant, you diners will almost certainly want to tuck into tiramisu or gelato after their main meal! Each course will complement the rest of your menu perfectly to create a top-tier culinary experience.
Creating a themed dessert menu will also allow your cooking staff to experiment with new flavours and dishes, instead of the classic dishes they may have prepared hundreds of times before!
Diners love creativity, so why stop at a themed dessert menu? Take your dining experience to new heights by experimenting with delicious drinks, from coffees to cocktails, to accompany each pudding.
Add a mixture of sweet and savoury desserts
We often think of dessert as being a slice of cheesecake or sticky toffee pudding, but not everyone has a sweet tooth! It’s important to remember this, as you might leave diners unsatisfied if every item on the menu is covered in sweet sauce or sugary toppings.
Putting savoury items on your restaurant’s dessert menu may seem unusual, but there are many delicious after-meal options that are sure to delight your diners. Perhaps the most obvious is the classic cheese board, which is a favourite amongst both savoury and sweet pudding choosers.
Don’t worry if you’ve never put together a cheese board before. All you need to do is check out our How to Create the Perfect Cheese Board guide! We also offer a range of indescribably tasty cheeses available for wholesale, so we truly do have everything you need to create a fantastic savoury dessert dish.
Cater to dietary requirements
Did you know that there are more than 600,000 people in the UK who follow a vegan diet, or that more than 8.5 million people in the UK avoid gluten? If you don’t cater to a broad range of dietary requirements, you could be missing out on a huge proportion of your target market!
To make sure your restaurant’s dessert menu is wholly inclusive, you should consider adding options to suit some of the most common dietary requirements. These include vegan and vegetarian, dairy-free and gluten-free. It’s extremely important to follow strict guidelines when preparing desserts to cater to dietary requirements, as you need to prevent the risk of contamination. Even small cases of cross-contamination could make people with allergies very ill, so invest in training for your food preparation and serving staff.
At Freshways, we understand the importance of catering to diners with dietary and allergy requirements! We’re even proud to supply a range of wholesale dairy-free products from leading brands like Alpro and Oatly, to help you cater specifically to vegan or lactose intolerant diners.
Offer healthy dessert options
After a particularly heavy meal, your diners might want a slightly lighter dessert. Cakes and puddings might be off the table, but perhaps there’s room for fruit salad or a zesty sorbet. Offering a couple of healthier dessert options might be what it takes to encourage everyone at the table to finish off the evening with a second or third course!
Healthy dessert options certainly don’t have to be uninspiring. You can be as creative as you like with fruit, nuts and seeds – three healthy food groups that taste fantastic on any dessert menu. The benefit to using fresh ingredients is that your puddings will naturally look appetising, but you could always go the extra mile by decorating with edible flowers!
You may also want to add a selection of coffees to the diners who really can’t eat another bite, but who would love to join in with post-dinner ordering. Don’t forget to offer your dessert coffee menu with a range of dairy-free milks!
How can we help you create the ultimate dessert menu?
At Freshways, we’re proud to supply a wide range of delectable wholesale food products, from creamy milk to baked goods from leading brands, and are pleased to work with catering businesses of all types and sizes. Whether you manage a family-run cafe or large chain of hotel restaurants, we’re on hand to supply the wholesale dairy and bakery products you need, alongside eggs, fruit juice, preservatives, dairy-free milk and much more!
Here are some of the tastiest sweet treats we offer, and how they could be incorporated into your restaurant’s dessert menu:
- Wholesale milk: Milk likely features heavily on your dessert menu! Milk can be used in everything from cake to trifle and mousse.
- Wholesale cheese: We supply everything from brie and Stilton (perfect for cheese boards!) to Philadelphia soft cheeses (which will bring extra creaminess to your cheesecake!).
- Wholesale eggs: Eggs can also be used in many delicious desserts! Perhaps the most common uses for eggs are in the creation of meringue and custard.
- Wholesale baked goods: We’re proud to supply pancakes and waffles from household names like Hovis!
No matter your requirements, you can trust Freshways – the UK’s favourite wholesale dairy and baked good suppliers.
Freshways: The UK’s favourite wholesale dairy suppliers
If you’re ready to give your diners a 5* dessert experience, it’s time to make Freshways your top choice of wholesale suppliers! We are proud to work with businesses across the UK to supply the freshest dairy products, including milk, cream and cheese, in addition to wholesale eggs, baked goods, jams and spreads, fruit juices, yeast and much more. No matter the ingredients you need to keep your diners coming back time and time again, you needn’t look further than us.
We also recognise the importance of reliable wholesale delivery services, which is why we always go above and beyond to transport your order to your door quickly and efficiently. When you order with Freshways, you can count on your delivery to be on-time, every time.
To learn more about our wholesale delivery services, or for more information about the range of products we supply, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. We look forward to working with you.