Flavor Face-Off: Nostalgic Desserts With Plus-One Power

As far as nostalgia goes, dessert can be a difficult category to beat. From cookies and cupcakes to s’mores and rice crispy treats, familiar sweets lead with cozy vibes and built-in craveability. And while the classic versions of such desserts are timeless, they can also serve as a springboard for more nuanced renditions.

The runaway success of Nothing Bundt Cakes’ Biscoff Cookie Butter Cake deftly illustrates this point. Cake, a dessert beloved by kids and adults alike, reaches a new level when married with Biscoff, an iconic Belgian cookie brand that brings its own dose of warm comfort. Meanwhile, San Francisco beer hall Radhaus infuses the all-American brownie with malty Alpine flavor.

For both desserts, the game-changing ingredient shows up in multiple ways. The Biscoff Cookie Butter Cake incorporates its namesake ingredient in the batter and as a finishing drizzle; Biscoff speculoos further boost the flavor profile while also introducing crunchy texture to the cake base and crown. At Radhaus, a trio of brews go into the Starkbier Brownie à la Mode: The brownie is infused with a dark lager, topped with housemade bier ice cream and finished with Märzen bier syrup.

Beyond their comfort-food anchors and high-impact additions, how do these two Best of Flavor desserts stack up against each other? Check out the breakdown below to find out.

Cakes and brownies, spices and chocolate—each is craveable in its own right but near impossible to compare. And yet together, the Biscoff Cookie Butter Cake and the Starkbier Brownie à la Mode make a compelling case for the possibilities in transforming nostalgic sweets into novel, contemporary indulgences.

Want to see how two floral desserts fare against one another? Check out this previous Flavor Face-Off.