Coffee & Treats in Milwaukee

It can be rough feeding a family, with parents figuring out how to find time to prepare healthy, delicious meals and still complete their long, grueling work schedules. That’s why Shane and Angie Huber at U-Bake decided to help their clients hurry dinner to the table by specializing in prepared, take-and-bake dinners and meal supplies. This allows their regular shoppers to easily and efficiently assemble entire meals with only an oven, a stovetop, or a third and final genie wish.

Though they’re known for their housemade dough, including pizza dough and more than 50 types of cookie dough, they also sling pastries, dry and frozen soups, and jellies and spreads to enhance any main course. They help families cope with dietary restrictions without compromising taste by whipping up a variety of gluten-free items, and their website promotes creative culinary pursuits by featuring signature recipes that only require ingredients you already have in your kitchen.

Melanie Aitken handcrafts small batches of truffles, brittle, and other dainties with expertise honed over 30 years as an acclaimed confectioner for parties and weddings. Clusters of cashews and caramel emulate turtles as they are dipped by hand into white- and milk-chocolate shells, and fragrant almonds flavor traditional dutch bonquet pastries, re-created based on a recipe from Melanie's grandmother. Lava-salted caramel strains to encase magmatic caramel drops within a sill of milk or white chocolate, and a sprinkling of black-lava salt hints at the eruption of flavor contained within. Melanie’s Country Confections delivers locally, and an online storefront facilitates orders throughout the country.

The Millionaire Monk and Berry Bonds aren’t characters on some wildly eccentric daytime soap. They're just two of the cheeky names Peeled's owners have given to the juices, smoothies, booster shots, and breakfast blends that pack the shop's beverage-heavy menu of healthy treats. Baristas versed in the art of hand-blending drinks make a range of beverages to-order from local and organic ingredients. The staff never adds sugars or chemicals to bulk up flavors or appease mad scientists’ taste buds. For customers looking for an especially salutary experience, the shop can supply enough juice for three-, five-, or seven-day juice cleanses that detoxify the body and bolster the immune system.

The juice spot's Evanston and Lincoln Park stores are both eco-friendly on the inside. The staff also keeps the juice bar's carbon footprint low by composting their fruit and vegetable matter.

Every day, an antique glass stove heats copper kettles full of the creams, caramels, and other decadent sweets that Anderson’s candy makers stuff inside the shop's most popular confections. Since its founding in 1919, Anderson's has crafted small batches of candies such as its signature chocolates, which feature high-quality ingredients including raw cane sugar, grade-AA Wisconsin butter, Shirley Temple’s tears, and pure Madagascar-bourbon vanilla extract. First devised by founder Arthur Anderson, this top-secret chocolate recipe has been handed down through multiple generations and to this day has only undergone slight modifications to improve its texture, flavor, and taste in music.

More than 110 flavors of Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream take turns guest-starring on Babe's monthly menu. This month provides more than 30 indulgent flavors, such as chocolate marshmallow and horchata, as well as alternative selections of sugar-free caramel ripple or espresso Oreo soy. Snag a sugar or wafer cone ($2.70 for a single scoop), or shoot for the sugary stars with a raspberry blast or piña colada smoothie ($3.75). Babe's also serves up specialty sundaes and shakes, while quarts of ice cream ($7.25) are available to be taken home in car-trunk freezers or stomach igloos.