Coffee & Treats in Pinecrest

A well-timed dose of cupcakes can make a dull winter bright, bring a smile to the face of a child, and even play a pivotal role in diffusing tensions during an XYZ Affair. Resolve your own diplomatic crisis by appeasing your sweet tooth with today's Groupon. For $6, you get a 12-pack of mini cupcakes from LA Sweets in South Miami, a $12.84 value. There is no purchase limit, so addiction is imminent. However, there is a limit of one redemption per visit to help curb any ensuing mini-cupcake dependency.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream. Crown yourself as creamery king with today's Groupon. For $2, you get an 8-ounce junior cup of ice cream at Wall's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream in South Miami. There is no limit on the quantity purchased. Pick up enough to take the whole family, city council, or knitting circle out for a dairy dinner. Kids standing less than 3 feet get a free ice cream cone, so start feeding your 4-footers less water and more salt to induce shrinking.

Long gone are the days of scraps-of-lace humanoid toy dollies for little girls. Today's dollies are cake balls—spheres of moist, heavenly cake, topped with frosting and coated in a firm cover of chocolate or vanilla. These handheld treats come in 12 flavors; with your Groupon poised to dab frosting from your lips, call up Little Miss Sweet Tooth and choose two flavors to go into your batch of 12. Plain Jane is a popular choice (vanilla cake and frosting in a vanilla cover), and a Southern Belle (red-velvet cake topped with cream-cheese frosting in a dark-chocolate bonnet) offers up some tonal contrast. New flavors include the Backstabber, peanut-butter cake with chocolate frosting dipped in a dark-chocolate helmet, and the Che Boluda, chocolate cake and dulce de leche swathed in dark chocolate.

Enjoy a meal on the go at BannaStrow's, where the chefs work their magic in front of your anticipatory pupils and breakfast is served all day. Start by selecting a crepe, wrep (wrapped crepe), or salad as your edible canvas. Then, throw down your choice of four fresh veggies, a refreshing dressing, and one highly pleasing cheese to complete your creation ($5.95). If for some reason you hit a creperie block, feel free to enjoy any signature item, including good morning breakfast crepes (eggs, mozzarella, cheese, and ham; $3.99), a sweet crepe (strudel supreme with cinnamon apples, caramel sauce, and vanilla ice cream; $6.15), or classic California salads (spring mixed lettuce, tomatoes, croutons, raisins, parmesan, and olive oil; $4.35). By the time your food's prepped, your eyes will have already basted your face in tears of joy and hunger.

Yesenia Rivera has three days to singlehandedly bake 425 treats, but you won’t see her break a sweat. In fact, you probably won’t see her at all. Come evening, the seasoned pastry chef will seclude herself in her home kitchen, which she has transformed into a tidy assembly line. She can tell you to the second how long it will take to apply frosting to a cupcake or poke a stick through a cake pop. And, aside from the occasional taste test from her 4-year-old daughter, Rivera shuns a second set of hands. “I can’t imagine delegating any of it. It’s too personal a process for me,” she admits.

For Rivera, every baked treat is a labor of love. She meets with her clients in their homes for hours and pours over recipe options and photo albums of her past creations. She caters to their every ingredient request—as a gluten-free, dairy-free eater herself, she’s no stranger to substitutions, such as bananas for eggs, or coconut oil for butter. And when it comes time to decorate, she literally sets each treat on a pedestal, and decorates it slowly and meticulously. “I think about the person I’m baking for when I’m putting the ingredients together—I pour my heart and soul into it,” Rivera says. But despite rigorous recipe calibration, each treat must pass one final test: if her daughter doesn’t love it, it doesn’t make it out the kitchen door.