Coffee & Treats in Palo Alto

Coco-luxe Confections fields a skilled team of confectionary clairvoyants who are ready to share their gourmet candy-crafting skills with the cacao-hungry masses. The build-your-own-chocolate-bar class instills beginner chocolatiers with the mediation skills needed to tame the melancholy attitude of rich and pensive dark chocolate by schooling them in chocolate-tempering techniques. Students can then combine fresh and flavorful ingredients to create six customized edible ingots ready to be devoured on-site or in the privacy of your own dessert den. Artistically inclined academics looking to expand sugar-sculpting skills beyond the slab can opt for the three-hour truffle-making class, in which a morsel midwife will lead a demonstration on the birth of baby bite-size chocolates before setting students free to focus on rolling, dipping, and decorating their own litter of 25. Students create two styles of fresh cream truffles in the class.

For more than two decades, Yogurt Stop has satiated sweet cravings with more than 15 alternating flavors of frozen yogurt to festoon with fresh fruit, candy, and nuts. The shop's menu encompasses a tongue-chilling collection of frosty fare, including sorbet, ice cream, smoothies, and frozen yogurt available in fat-free, low-fat, sugar-free, low-lactose, and soy varieties that bear the signature swirl and creamy texture of classic fro-yo. Friendly staffers, some of whom were loyal Yogurt Stop patrons as children, fill homemade waffle cones with custom confections and advise customers on fail-proof combinations of toppings or numbers to unlock any bank vault.

Miz Lynn’s Pies is a small sweets emporium that bakes small batches of Southern-inspired Sweet Potato, New England Lemon Chess, and Pecan pies free of artificial starches and fillers. Packed with all-natural ingredients, the handcrafted pies have caught the attention of local grocery stores, restaurants, and former mayor Willie Brown. Each variety bestows its own benefits, including the sweet potato pie’s fiber and potassium, the pecan’s nutty protein, and the lemon chess’s board game tips.

There’s nothing quite like biting into a warm cookie fresh out the oven to bring back memories of a simpler time, when treats were made with unpretentious, quality ingredients. Too Good Gourmet strives to vault taste buds back to this era with its delicious cookies. Though its founders, a mother-daughter team, have expanded into a 50,000-square-foot facility equipped with modern baking systems and dozens of employees, they still bake cookies using family recipes and fresh ingredients. To ensure that the integrity of the cookies is maintained even with such a large-scale operation, department leads conduct quality checks every half hour, and all employees undertake monthly training classes to keep their baking skills sharp and their knowledge of advances in the sprinkles industry second to none.

Long time friends Dena Tripp and Debra Shwetz founded Nothing Bundt Cakes in 1997 after toiling for months to perfect their bundt cake recipe and business concept. Now a national brand, Nothing Bundt Cakes specializes in daily made cakes crafted from high quality ingredients—such as fresh eggs, real butter, and real cream cheese—and decorated with designs that tickle customers' nostalgia bones. Bakers forge cakes for special occasions including congratulations, birthdays, or baby's first psychic predictions in flavors such as red velvet, marble, or pecan praline. Confectioners can customize moist rounds with signature frosting petals and frosting drizzles, as well as personal images and messages. After visitors cross the threshold of a Nothing Bundt Cakes store, they're surrounded by whimsical gifts, vintage décor, pastel colors, and cozy furnishings, all combined to foster an atmosphere as folksy as Mark Twain's blog about Norman Rockwell.

Though Malika and Adeyinka Awobajo's baked goods are decorative and tasty, they are made with more than dessert in mind. The pair, who founded Mika’s Cupcakes in May of 2011, began constructing confections years prior in order to help feed and care for homeless families in the area. Today, they apply a portion of proceeds toward helping the homeless population in the Bay area, as well as set some money aside for a future youth transitional shelter.

Mika's ovens breathe life into a multitude of signature cupcakes, which come in both classic and inventive flavors. Nearly hedonic ingredients such as amaretto and mocha infuse Indulgent Treats cupcakes, whereas sundae cupcakes come with a cherry on top to render them as sweet as a kindergartner's plea to go see CSPAN on Ice. Fondant-coated gourmet cakes serve as personal-sized desserts for giants, and cake pops offer convenient sugar consumption during games of double dutch. Strawberries and pretzel rods doused in chocolate take a dip into chopped almonds or chocolate chips, whereas granny-smith apples submerged in caramel break the surface smothered in chocolate or nuts.