Vintage Desserts That Ruled The 1980s

The 1980s may have been known for launching some questionable trends: Sky-high hair, leg warmers, and Max Headroom come to mind. But one movement that doesn't disappoint even in the 21st century is the vintage 1980s desserts that crossed our tables and made life sweeter. Not every 1980s dessert that soared to popularity was a new invention; some were comebacks for homemade classics while others were clever gourmet creations that found an audience. And some were entirely new to the dessert scene, insanely delicious dessert inventions that set the world of enjoyable dining on its ear.

You may have heard of some of the best-known vintage 1980s desserts that gave our collective sweet tooth something to smile about. Others may have been regional delights that never made it into your awareness but are still deserving of a shout-out now that the decade is just a speck in the rearview mirror of infinity. It's high time the best selections from ice cream shops, specialty cookbooks, and restaurant menus of the decade that gave us surfer speak and video arcades got their due. From homey Dream Whip pie to upscale tiramisu, these are the vintage 1980s desserts that we just can't get over.

If you were a kid in the 1980s and you ate lunch at a school cafeteria, there's a good chance that you ran into a little square of Texas sheet cake at some point in your life. Though it wasn't anything new, the decade and its busy moms brought this dessert into the fore. It was rich and decadent and easy to whip up in large quantities, which made it a natural fit for food workers who had to feed an elementary school's worth of children all at once. It also made more than a few appearances at family gatherings where a smaller creation wouldn't feed the masses.

Unlike the more familiar chocolate cakes baked in deep pans, Texas sheet cake used a pan normally reserved for jelly roll cakes: a sheet pan (hence the name, obviously). This produced a thinner sponge with a denser texture and could be spread into a larger pan to make the batter go further than a traditional pan. The icing was its own special thing too, usually a cocoa glaze that crackled when sliced into instead of a thicker frosting. A sprinkle of walnuts or pecans was all the décor this unforgettable dessert needed to rule the 1980s and become a nostalgic favorite that shows up at cookouts and backyard barbecues to this day.

From the outside, there is not much to a Jell-O poke cake. It's simply a cake in a square or rectangular pan with a sheath of smooth whipped cream frosting on top. The magic happens when you slice into it and discover that the Interior has spikes of color like stalactites reaching down into the surface of the sponge, courtesy of holes that have been poked with the end of a wooden spoon and liquid Jell-O poured over top. Refrigeration sets the liquid into a pudding-like gel consistency and the bright taste of the gelatin gives the cake a punch of fantastic fruit flavor.

Rather than slathering on buttercream or canned frosting, home cooks topped this cake with a lighter option like Cool Whip or Dream Whip, sometimes using a packet of banana or lemon Jell-O pudding mixed in to accent the cake and add even more flavorful magic. The overall effect of a single slice sitting on a plate is far more elegant than the simple design of the cake would suggest, begging anyone lucky enough to be served a piece to ask the cook how they achieved such a slick effect. And now, an old-fashioned Jell-O poke cake recipe is likely part of your inheritance, whether you realize it or not.

Ah, the classic Viennetta, a premade ice cream cake that looked like it was conjured up by magicians in an enchanted bakery but was really available in box form at the grocery store, courtesy of British ice cream company Wall's. The Good Humor brand picked up on the sweet trend, and by the end of the decade, the creamy Viennetta cake with ice cream aspirations had become a top-tier treat for the more discerning dessert diner.

What was it about this deluxe creation that captured the imagination of anyone who saw it sitting on a table ready to be sliced? It was pretty, for one thing, a blend of frilled whipped cream layers that look like chocolate lasagna, with a thick ribbon of fudge running down the center. Once sliced, all the delicious layers were revealed within, inviting fans of supremely sweet creations to dig in from the center and work their way to the top. Alas, though not as readily available as it once was, U.S. customers have spotted Vienetta in the wild at Publix in Florida, and it seems to be on hand at grocers in the U.K. and other regions of the world, all thanks to continued production by Unilever.

What in the world is a flourless chocolate cake and how can something like this even exist in the world of satisfying desserts? That question was answered by the inventive use of crushed almonds as flour, a pastry chef trick that caught on big in the 1980s thanks to this dense and extremely rich chocolate cake and its presence on menus around the high-end restaurant circuit. Back then, low-carb eating wasn't the all-consuming movement it eventually became, but that didn't stop bakers from using a high-fat, high-protein replacement for their usual cake flour to achieve a specialty creation.

Could a cake made without traditional flour come through as a dynamic dessert? Absolutely, considering ground almonds become a base similar to wheat flour that brings in additional fat to make the batter more indulgent. Some recipes eliminate the almond flour too, resulting in a cake with a more brownie-like texture. In both cases, what comes out of the oven is a dense dessert that emphasizes chocolatey richness. Overall, the flourless chocolate cake set the tone for a more luxe way to offer chocolate cake to a finicky audience, an idea that's carried on into the modern age of the flourless and gluten-free gourmets of the world.

Tiramisu is still a much-loved Italian confection, with its deep layers of ladyfingers soaked in coffee liqueur and smooth ricotta strata filling up a trifle bowl that allows every luscious element to show through. Though tiramisu was not a new creation, it was in the early 1980s that chef Lidia Bastianich brought notoriety with the tiramisu on the menu in her new restaurant, Felidia. By the mid-'80s, the sweet combination was a certified hit in American eateries. it enjoyed a decent run as a prestige dessert that set tongues wagging and taste buds tingling in the culinary world and on the dining scene.

Fascination for the luxe personality of tiramisu didn't stop when the decade ended. The dessert got a renewed boost in visibility when it became a featured dish in the 1993 hit rom-com "Sleepless in Seattle." Maybe because it's so uniquely Italian and so different from standard desserts, tiramisu has held on as a treasured treat, showing up as cakes and coffee drinks that emulate the original composition.

The most indelible appearance of red velvet cake made in the 1980s was in the 1989 film "Steel Magnolias," where it was revealed to be the interior of a cake decorated to look like an armadillo. Though that particular cake gave the impression of an animal bleeding red sponge, the Southern charm of red velvet cake had actually been making its way to the top of the dessert food chain for a while, first as a velvet cake, then as a cocoa velvet cake, and finally in the 1930s becoming red velvet cake. The wild-haired 1980s gave this lush treat the boost it needed to become a contemporary favorite.

The 1980s passed into the 1990s, and red velvet cake became a standard among luxury cake flavors. It still crops up as cupcakes, macarons, ice cream, and even shake flavors, tantalizing fans with its vibrant ruby hue and intriguing chocolate-but-better taste that comes about courtesy of the cocoa powder and buttermilk used in the recipe. You'd never know from looking at a slice that the severely red sponge tastes like this; that part is thanks to the generous helping of red food coloring used to overpower the other ingredients and infuse an evenly red tone that really does resemble velvet.

Home chefs of the '80s in need of a shelf-stable version of Cool Whip had a friend in a product called Dream Whip. This powdered version of whipped cream required no refrigeration until it was transformed into its fluffier self with the addition of milk. Once it came to life in this way, it could be turned into one of the most convenient desserts of the decade, the Dream Whip pie. No matter what your favorite pie flavor was, you could work it into this chilled cloud in a crust, everything from citrus to chocolate to butterscotch.

If it sounds a lot like a Cool Whip pie, that's because it was pretty much identical. The whipped topping itself was spruced up with the addition of powdered pudding mix or melted chocolate, fruit, peanut butter — whatever you could dream up, Dream Whip pie had you covered. The resulting mishmash was piled into a preformed graham cracker crust and refrigerated until firm. What came out of the fridge was a light and fluffy yet rich and flavorful mousse-like pie that could come together in minutes without baking. Anyone intrigued by this wonder of modern food chemistry should know that Dream Whip is still available and ready to become a decadent pie once again.

Chocolate molten lava cake started appearing on menus in the U.S. in the 1980s as an interactive dessert that doubled down on the chocolate quotient in what would otherwise be a single-serving chocolate cake. With so much sweetness on the plate, there was no need for anything more than a Ding Dong-sized cake. The restricted size also ensured even melting for the chocolate interior and made it possible for the pudding-like ganache to erupt when the cake was sliced into.

A dessert so captivating could hardly be contained to just the 1980s. You can find this diminutive delight sailing right through the 1990s and into the new millennium, becoming a fast-casual favorite as well as a featured player on many a televised cooking competition. It's even an item on the Domino's Pizza dessert listing, though that version looks far less appetizing than the more precision creations executed by talented pastry chefs through the years. Still, a chocolate cake that oozes more chocolate from its middle is never a bad thing, no matter who puts it on your plate.

You may know it as a better than everything cake, but the cheeky fun of using its other name — better than sex cake — turned it into a swinging 1980s fad that included almost every tooth-decaying version of sugar you could imagine all merged into one totally tubular cake dessert. It's among those chocolate cake recipes that are dangerously delicious, although depending on who you ask, a better than sex cake may live differently in their dessert-loving memories, thanks to a variety of executions.

A few different recipes for the better than sex cake circulated in the 1980s; some incorporated vanilla cake topped with pineapple and provided a more fruit-forward profile, while the better-known versions featured a chocolate batter enriched with sour cream, chocolate pudding mix, and a drizzle of caramel sauce or sweetened condensed milk that soaked into the sponge. With a lighter whipped topping, a last swirl of caramel and a sprinkle of toffee chips or broken-up Heath bars, this stomach-churningly sweet dessert would either be your favorite birthday dessert or your least-loved gut bomb. The compromise of eating smaller slices lets everyone enjoy better than sex cake to their own sensibilities.

One of the most iconic desserts in the world of ice cream shop treats showed up in the mid-1980s to blow minds and ruin the idea of what soft serve should be for an entire generation. This genius mash-up incorporated cookies and candy into the Dairy Queen chain's beloved soft serve in a thick, whipped concoction that servers would hand inverted to customers to prove how thick and rich the contents of the cup were. The idea of mushing other sweets into ice cream was more of a home-based practice before the Blizzard blew into town. Toppings were relegated to the old-fashioned standbys like peanuts, sauces, and fruit. Dairy Queen literally tuned the dessert world upside-down.

Initially, the restaurant offered Oreos and M&Ms among the first-generation mix-ins, keeping the collection simple and aiming it toward the taste buds of the average DQ customer. Over the decades, the offerings became more creative, replicating popular desserts and ice cream flavors with added dimensional flair thanks to brownies, s'mores pieces, cake, and candy bars. Maybe the most obvious untold truth about the Dairy Queen Blizzard is that it made 1980s desserts fun again. If you were there from the start, you know how exciting it was. And if you weren't, you probably still have a pretty good idea.

Interactive desserts don't get much more hands-on than a classic monkey bread, a cinnamon roll pull-apart dessert that made its splash in the 1980s. The down-to-earth treat was popularized by Ronald Reagan during his time as president. Families around the U.S. found themselves drawn to the rich spheres of bread dough slathered in sugary syrup that flipped out of the baking pan like a working man's croquembouche. Kids and adults alike adored digging into the sticky sensation that made a mess of their hands and their dining room tables.

Half the fun of monkey bread was the assembly, layering lumps of dough into a Bundt pan with gooey caramel sauce loaded into the bottom. The other half was deconstructing it once it was baked, pulling the bready spheres apart to taste the pastry-like flavors and textures held in each fluffy nugget. Consider this vintage 1980s dessert a stacked pastry that presented like an edible Jenga game and made a lasting impression on the world of sweet treats.

In its quest to capture the dollars of ice cream lovers looking for a healthier alternative, the frozen yogurt industry cropped up in the 1980s and elbowed its way onto the dessert scene. Back then, it was cleverly dubbed "fro-yo" to make it sound hip, but when it was revealed that this alternate soft serve wasn't really that much healthier than ice cream, it became a second-rate choice that faded from popularity, though there were still cartons in the freezer sections for those who couldn't let go.

It wasn't until chic shops like California's Pinkberry revitalized the concept with a deep catalog of fun flavors in a self-serve format that frozen yogurt got its 21st century due. The resurgence has carried on into the 2020s, with new frozen yogurt joints popping up on the dessert horizon every few years to challenge and refresh the concept. So anytime you pull the handle and dole out a dish of your favorite flavor, remember it was the rad 1980s that started the trend.

The mix of culinary science and sweet treats came to a pinnacle in the 1980s with the introduction of Magic Shell as a topping for ice cream. This sensational bottle topped ordinary fudge and caramel sauce by transforming into the crispy outer layer of a Good Humor bar right before your eyes. With flavors like fudge, peanut butter, and mint chocolate, there were options to suit every ice cream lover's top temptation. The greater power of Magic Shell was that you could pour on as much as you wanted to get the thickness of the chocolate just right. Try doing that with a Dilly Bar.

The decade may be long over, but you can still find this trippy topping in grocery stores to trick out your treat life if you know where to shop. For the intrepid home culinary scientist, there are also easy-to-create homemade versions that let you conjure up the enchantment in a slightly more wholesome form. The secret ingredient is coconut oil, which solidifies almost instantly when exposed to cold. That little tidbit may demystify one of the coolest 1980s desserts, but it doesn't make Magic Shell any less scrumptious.

You may have had an eclair from the bakery or donut shop and wondered what it would be like if it came in a cake-sized dessert. Well, the 1980s knew what your sugar-loving heart was after and came up with the chocolate éclair cake. This dreamy dish provided all the luxurious taste and texture of a real éclair while requiring no pastry experience whatsoever. All you needed to put one together was an array of pantry-ready mixes and a container to hold it all.

Despite the multi-step process for creating one, there's no baking involved in a chocolate éclair cake, and though its origins are difficult to trace, there's no denying that brands like Jell-O and Nabisco benefited from its invention. Considering the dessert involves layering graham crackers between sheaths of Cool Whip folded into instant vanilla pudding and a topping of chocolate frosting or chewy chocolate ganache, there's plenty of corporate food production name-dropping in the recipe — and plenty of opportunity for dentists to clean up once this sugary invention has been indulged in.