Just Desserts

Sweet secrets for after you eat. Or before.

Photo: Morgan Ione Yeager

et us praise Ruth Graves Wakefield. She’s the Whitman woman who, in 1937, invented the chocolate-chip cookie at her Toll House Restaurant—proving yet again that all good things come from Massachusetts. Alas, Graves sold all rights to the “Toll House” name to Nestlé and the restaurant burned down on New Year’s Eve in 1984. But we still get to enjoy our cookies. Here are 14 delicious cookie secrets,including other historic confections, pastries that will drive you nutty, vegan varieties, and Italian sweet treats from a North End bakery (no, not that one) open all night:

A bakery with food both fresh and famous
 

A great bakery in a surreal setting
 

A nut-box pastry that will drive you nutty
 

A fancy restaurant where dessert is half price—if you know when to go
 

A pie shop that’s a chocolate lover’s dream
 

Cupcake heaven? Yup. And you won’t believe where
 

An Italian bakery vegans—and the rest of us—can love
 

A well-known bakery that still is cooking up some secrets
 

A North End bakery that serves it up all day—and night
 

A neighborhood bagel favorite you didn’t know also has cookies
 

A hidden Irish bakery that’s a taste of the old country
 

A bakery whose treats are always just out of the oven
 

A neat, petite treat that takes the cake
 

A cake bakery you never knew was there
 
 

A sweet surprise you’ll really like
 
 

A New England dessert that’s in a class by itself