Many people consider dessert to be a luxury — it’s decadent, caloric, indulgent, and frequently very, very chocolatey. But there are some desserts out there that take opulence to a whole new level. These aren’t the kinds of desserts you can whip up in your home kitchen with your stand mixer, nor can you get them at that adorable neighborhood bakery with your morning cup of coffee. These are the types of desserts you order days iin advance so the ingredients can be shipped in and where your utensil might be worth more than a month’s rent.
Here’s the scoop: Cellato’s “Byakuya” is the world’s most expensive ice cream, according to the Guinness (DEO) book of world records — it costs over $5,800 for a 130-milliliter serving. The gelato is made with white truffles (aka “white diamonds”) from Italy and Japanese sake lees, a pastelike byproduct from sake production; topped with Parmesan cheese and more truffles to resemble snow; and garnished with gold leaf. White truffle oil comes on the side. The ice cream can be ordered online and comes with a spoon handmade by Takeuchi artisans in Kyoto, Japan, from materials used in shrine and temple construction.
This dessert gives new meaning to the word “rich.” The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence from a Sri Lankan resort cost $14,500 in 2018. The confection is a Baileys-flavored Italian cassata with a champagne sabayon base that is served with a mango-and-pomegranate compote, flecked with gold leaf, and garnished with a handcrafted chocolate carving of a fisherman atop a stilt — which holds an 80-carat aquamarine gemstone. If you want to order the dessert, you’ll need to give the resort 24 hours’ notice.
When you order a $1,000 dessert, you get to keep the fork. “La Bomba” from Bar Franco in Montclair, New Jersey, is a diamond-shaped confection made of a vanilla cookie topped with chocolate mousse and vanilla cream that’s filled with caramel pearls and flecked with 24-karat gold leaf. The chocolate is made of 72% Venezuela single-origin Valrhona chocolate infused with Kopi Luwak coffee; six different vanillas are used to make the cream. The dessert comes with a diamond-encrusted fork and a shot of Louis XIII (REMYF) cognac (which costs around $4,700 per bottle).
If you want to try the $1,000 Golden Opulence sundae from New York City’s Serendipity 3, you’ll need to give the restaurant a 48-hour heads up so the necessary ingredients can be flown in from around the world. The sundae is made of three scoops of Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream that have been infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23-karat edible gold leaf; doused in chocolate syrup made from melted Amedei Porcelana chocolate; covered with chunks of Chuao chocolate; adorned with Parisian candied fruits, gold-covered almonds, chocolate truffles, and marzipan cherries; sprinkled with Grand Passion caviar; and topped with a gilded sugar flower and more gold flakes. The sundae comes in a $350 Baccarat Harcourt souvenir crystal goblet.
Ecuadorians don’t mess around when it comes to their chocolate. The country is where the first cacao tree was domesticated over 5,000 years ago, and now it’s where the chocolate from To’ak Chocolate’s $490 Masters Series Enriquestuardo bar comes from. The chocolate is made from the near-extinct Nacional trees and has notes of buttery caramel, plum, honey, and delicate cashew. The bar comes with a limited-edition signed print from Ecuadorian artist Enriquestuardo and arrives in a Spanish elm wooden box engraved with bronze, along with a tasting utensil also made of the wood and an encapsulated cacao bean from an ancient heirloom cacao tree.
Chesnut lovers, rejoice: Japanese confectionery company Hitachi Fugetsudo offers the Manyokan Hitachi, an 80% chestnut steamed sweet-bean jelly made with rare Iinuma chestnuts (the highest-quality offering in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan’s largest chestnut producer) for $300.
Craving something particularly outrageous? Try Three Brothers Bakery’s 23.5-pound, three-layer Pumpecapple Piecake: a pumpkin pie baked in a pumpkin spice cake, an award-winning pecan pie baked in a chocolate cake, and an apple pie baked in a traditional spice cake. The layers are separated by a homemade cream cheese frosting, and the cake is frosted and garnished with pecans and drizzled with homemade caramel. If you’re buying from the bakery, the 11-inch cake will cost you $599 to have shipped to you in the contiguous U.S. states and $300 if you can pick it up at one of the bakery’s Texas locations. Goldbelly sells the cake for $355.
Eggs are expensive right now, but they don’t yet have anything on the $300 chocolate dinosaur egg from chocolatier House of Knipschildt. The egg is made from house-blended milk chocolate and speckled with white and dark chocolate, is 14 inches by 8 inches by 8 inches, and weighs approximately 15 pounds.
Los Angeles-based Last Crumb bakery has gone viral on TikTok for being the most expensive cookie you can purchase right now, a distinction the company’s website wears with pride. Twelve cookies from Last Crumb’s Core Collection will cost you $120, while a build-your-own-dozen box is $140 — the company offers other specialty collections at different times of the year for various prices. Cookies include “The Floor is Lava” (milk chocolate, dark chocolate, Dutch chocolate, espresso, and a chocolate ganache core), “The James Dean” (malted milk, malt balls, light cocoa, white chocolate, semisweet chocolate, and Oreo chunks), and the “Donkey Kong” (ripe bananas, marshmallows, pudding, vanilla wafers, and white chocolate chips).
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