If you're eating out in Leeds, you're spoilt for choice if you want burgers or barbecued meat. But what if you'd rather indulge your sweet tooth? We take a look at some of the most plentiful puds in Leeds.
Get Baked: The Joint
Fresh from its refurbishment, The Joint offers two particularly decedent desserts. Ideally located next to The University of Leeds, its dessert menu reflects the tastes of its co-founder Rich, and of the desires of the clientele. Rich is proud to point out that all the cakes and cheesecakes are homemade, and the taste reflects this.
Peanut Butter Dream PieEwan Burkinshaw
The Peanut Butter Dream Pie is created on an Oreo pie crust, with chocolate ganache and a peanut butter mousse. The dessert is topped with whipped cream, marshmallows, Oreos, peanut butter cups and chocolate fudge sauce.
S'mores PieEwan Burkinshaw
Also made with an Oreo pie crust, the S'mores Pie features a chocolate ganache, chocolate truffle centre and topped with toasted marshmallow. Both, as you'd imagine, are incredibly rich but well worth the calories.
Get Baked: The Joint. Trinity St Davids Church, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT
Almost Famous
The WowbunEwan Burkinshaw
One of the city's more unusual puddings, the Wowbun at Almost Famous pays homage to the restaurant's typical fare of burgers. The cinnamon dusted brioche bun houses a chocolate truffle cereal crunch patty (think sugar puffs – sorry, Honey Monster Puffs – cemented together with a whole load of tooth melting chocolate) covered in whipped cream and drizzled with a salted caramel sauce.
Not quite as heavy as some of the other offerings, it's still a taste sensation and something to be experienced.
Almost Famous, 23-25 Great George Street, Leeds, LS1 3AL
A Nation of Shopkeepers
Chocolate chip cookie & peanut butter towerEwan Burkinshaw
The densest pud available at Nation of Shopkeepers has to be the Chocolate Chip Cookie & Peanut Butter Tower. Maybe not quite a tower, but a portion larger than the one offered would be hard to eat.
The cookies that make up three of the layers are freshly made for each pudding to ensure maximum ooziness. Combined with the peanut butter ice cream each mouth full was a herculean effort which ended in a sugar rush to end all sugar rushes. And a subsequent crash two hours later.
Nation of Shopkeepers, 29 Cookridge Street, Leeds, LS2 3AG
The Yummy Yank
Chocolate Cake/Peanut Butter CheesecakeYummy Yank
Lisa, the mastermind behind The Yummy Yank, is a 100%, bonafide, gen-u-wine 'Murican and her baking is exactly what you hope it to be. Using traditional American recipes, flavours and styles her cakes are truly extravagant and offer a challenge for event the sweetest tooth.
Some of the more eye-widening desserts in her repertoire include the three tier Double Banana and Butterscotch Frosting cake, the Chocolate Cake/Peanut Butter Cheesecake Combo and the autumnal Pumpkin Cheesecake.
You can find the Yummy Yank at various markets throughout Yorkshire (including Kirkstall Market and Baildon Farmers' Market), as well as ordering via phone or email for collection.
The Yummy Yank, Kirkstall Market, Kirkstall Abbey, Kirkstall, Leeds, LS5 3EH. (Last Saturday and Sunday of the month)
Sweet Pizza
Sweet Pizza
In a similar vein to Almost Famous, the guys at Sweet Pizzas put a sugary spin on what is normally savoury. A Sweet Pizza is a full on, scream and shout, tooth dissolving, decedent dessert. They come with two different bases, depending on how quickly you want to develop diabetes.
The brownie base is made of a dark chocolate melt with optional chopped walnuts and cherries. The cookie based pizza is slightly more conventional, but sturdier. Extra sturdiness is important as it means you can pile the toppings extra high, and pack them even denser.
Some of Sweet Pizzas favourites include the The Hawaiian (banana chips, sweetened pineapple, chocolate raisins, bounty and desiccated coconut), Fudge Frenzy (jelly beans, Cadbury's Fudge, Mars and butterscotch sauce) or the Oreo Medley (Oreos, Snickers, Mars, Smarties, white choc chips, mini marshmallow and chocolate sauce).
Perhaps for the best, Sweet Pizzas require orders to be made 48 hours in advance and are (for the time being) collection only.
Sweet Pizzas, Street Lane, Leeds, LS8
Can you think of any more exceptional treats we've left off the list? Let us know.
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