Just one in four foodservice locations makes its cookies and brownies from scratch. The report found most often, cookies are baked fresh from dough sourced through a supplier, while brownies and bars tend to be purchased frozen then thawed and served.

Ice cream is the most-loved dessert for 90% of consumers surveyed. Chocolate chip cookies are right behind at 86%, tied with brownies, cake, donuts and ice cream sandwiches.

The influence of the “freakshake,” a milkshake piled high with everything but the kitchen sink, has left its sticky mark on the dessert category. Frozen treats “adorned with a wide assortment of indulgent toppings possess a strong visual appeal and score very well,” the report found. Notable examples include churro sundaes, a gummy shark shake and salty donuts making milkshakes freaky.

Sixty-six percent of Millennials say there is a signature dessert they look forward to at a foodservice operations, while 61% of baby boomers (and older) said there’s no signature dessert that comes to mind.

While milkshakes may be fertile ground for “safe experimentation” in the dessert space, customers prefer the classics when it comes to cake. Perhaps it’s the birthday party nostalgia factor, but 29% of consumers most recently had chocolate cake, with yellow/vanilla cake a distant second at 9%. Only 2% of consumers had Black Forest cake and angel food cake.

With that said, Datassential also gathered reports of different trends in cakes popping up, including Key lime cake, s’mores cake, Earl Grey tea cake and cinnamon cake.

Forty-one percent of consumers are very interested or interested in global desserts, while 55% of operators offer them or would be interested in offering them. The French macaron has had a 13x increase on menus in the last 10 years. Other examples include baklava, affogato and beignets.

Goat cheese is the fastest-growing cheesecake category, with growth of 137% on menus. Ricotta and mascarpone are also hot on menus. Other high-growth menu descriptors of cheesecake include fried cheesecake, coulis, compote and red velvet.

Customers surveyed said they would like to see more pies and cobblers on the menu, especially with seasonal flavors, boozy flavors like bourbon and exotic ingredients like gooseberries, acai and guava.