Desserts come in all shapes and sizes, from flaky cylinders of cream-filled cannoli to triangular slices of dense, gooey pie. No matter their form or flavor, desserts bring happiness - and that's what customers will find at these 10 top spots for sweets - all nominated for Dessert Program of the Year in the 2026 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

Sample some of their creations during signature tasting event, now just a few weeks away, on April 30 at Social Space (205 S. Calhoun St.). The culinary extravaganza will feature bites and beverages from our nominees before a short-and-sweet awards ceremony announcing all the winners.

Limited discounted tickets remain for general admission and VIP; prices will go up after April 6, so don't delay. Nab your tickets and then learn more about all of the contenders in our special editorial series.

Here are the 10 nominees for Dessert Program of the Year:

The Black Rooster Bakery
Founded by baker and sourdough aficionado Marche Ann Mann in 2010, Black Rooster Bakery was acquired by restaurateur Immy Khan in 2014. Khan moved the bakery from its original Forest Park Boulevard location right next door to his other business, The Lunch Box (6333 Camp Bowie Blvd.). The bakery boasts the same bread and pastry recipes that have drawn customers since its inception, with a few additions over the years. Desserts come in the form of flavored croissants, from chocolate to almond to raspberry cream, and sweets like walnut coffee cake, chocolate brownies, and salted caramel dessert bars.

Black Rooster Bakery pastries.Courtesy photo

Bricks and Horses
The posh Bowie House restaurant (3700 Camp Bowie Blvd.) upped its dessert game when executive pastry chef Laura Cottler joined the kitchen team. With training from The French Culinary Institute in New York, her resume includes a decade with Ritz-Carlton, culminating with working alongside legendary chef Dean Fearing in Dallas at his namesake Ritz-Carlton restaurant. Her Bricks and Horses creations include four-layer Devil’s food cake with chili-spiced crème, pineapple upside down cake with buttermilk lime ice cream, and pie cart offerings of brown sugar sweet potato, Key lime yuzu, and raspberry gooey butter pie, all topped tableside.

Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop
In addition to a Fort Worth outlet at 6120 Camp Bowie Blvd., this small pie shop chain from Tennessee now has a handful of locations in the 'burbs, in Arlington, Colleyville, and Mansfield. Founded in Knoxville in 2012 by Scott and Meredith Layton (The couple won Cooking Channel's Sugar Showdown in 2015), the pie shop menu is based on Southern-inspired family recipes. Pies just like grandma used to make include coconut cream, lemon meringue, chocolate chess, triple berry, and pineapple delight, to name a few. Other treats include thumbprint cookies and pie pops.

Creative Memories: The Sweet Spot Bakery
This boutique bakery in Alliance Town Center (2912 Texas Sage Trail) has been quietly and steadily turning out sweet treats for 37 years. Originally located in Hurst, the bakery relocated to its current spot in 2014. Owned by baker Sharon Whitley, Creative Memories wows with its lengthy list of cakes in unique flavors like chocolate mint, Dreamsicle, pina colada, and even root beer. But the complete menu of desserts runs deep, with options including buttercream-stuffed cookie sandwiches, chocolate “ding dongs” (cake with marshmallow cream filling, covered in chocolate), Rice Krispy treats with sprinkles drizzled white chocolate, cake pops, and the ever popular petit fours – a go-to for showers and girly parties. Bonus: customers are able to satisfy a sweet tooth emergency by ordering Creative Memories’ goodies via Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Door Dash.

Esperanza's Restaurant & Bakery
Opened in North Side in 1981 by Esperanza “Hope” Garcia – daughter of Joe T. Garcia – Esperanza’s bakery and café quickly became popular for its unpretentious counter service that felt like someone’s home kitchen. Today there are two locations (2122 N. Main St. and 1601 Park Place Ave.), and both boast bakeries best known for colorful Mexican sweet breads, sugar cookies, sopapillas, pralines, and tres leches cake. At the flagship location next to Joe T.’s itself, customers line up daily to order sweets to go, packaged quickly by an efficient staff always ready to help the next guest.

FunkyTown Donuts & Drafts
Sundance Square is a lot sweeter thanks to this gourmet corner doughnut shop (132 E. 4th St.), where owner Brandon Moors and his team dream up delicious flavor combinations like lemon blueberry, pistachio with taro glaze, and Samoa with caramel and toasted coconut. They're also known to bake up sweet treats matching the themes of shows at Bass Performance Hall across the street (always a tempting stop for patrons before and after performances). FunkyTown is also popular for custom orders like doughnut walls, giant doughnuts, and “message doughnuts” that can spell out any sentiment a customer desires.

Leaves Bakery & Books
Originally a bookstore and tea shop at 120 St. Louis Ave. that opened in 2018, Leaves left its courtyard space to move inside Stir Crazy Baked Goods (1251 W. Magnolia Ave.) in early 2024, eventually taking over as Leaves Bakery & Books. Customers can still shop for books, now while savoring something sweet. The menu of cakes, cookies, bars, biscotti, pies, and even house-made peanut butter dog treats draw patrons from Near Southside neighborhoods, many who visit by foot.

Melt Ice Creams
Before Kari Crowe opened Melt in 2014, Fort Worth was missing a locally owned, premium small batch ice cream shop. The reception was obviously positive as she’s since expanded to six locations, including downtown, the Stockyards, Willow Park, Bishop Arts Dallas, Grapevine, and the flagship shop at 1201 W. Magnolia Ave. Her high-quality ice creams are made with a high percentage of butterfat for extra creaminess and never with artificial flavors or colors. Even more, any extras in the ice cream, like cookies or cake, are made in-house, including the specialty waffle cones (which, customers rave, are worth a trip on their own).

Melt Ice Creams with their famous waffle cones.Courtesy photo

The Sicilian Baker
Celeb chef and concept king Joey Maggiore made his Texas debut two years ago with the opening of The Sicilian Butcher in the Alliance area of North Fort Worth. Folks flocked for craft meatball Ferris wheels, scratch-made pastas, and table-length charcuterie platters. But connected to the space (3200 Tracewood Way) is The Sicilian Baker, a cannoli bar and Pasticceria boasting Sicilian cakes like tiramisu, Italian rum, and Napoleon; and intricate cookies and pastries, like the Nutella “lobster tail” made with a puff pastry shell. Cannoli creams range from cookie butter and espresso to strawberry, pistachio, and Reese’s. There’s a gelato bar, too.

Swiss Pastry Shop
This Fort Worth institution began with Hans Muller, a baker who left Switzerland for the U.S. and opened Swiss Pastry Shop (3936 W. Vickery Blvd.) in 1973. But it’s Hans Peter, Muller’s son, who’s grown the bakery into the Fort Worth bucket list destination it is today. It’s recognized widely for its fresh pastries, pies, breads, cookies, and especially the Black Forest cake – a Fort Worth icon known by many as, simply, "the crunchy cake." The recent viral sensation has been a staple for Fort Worth special occasions for decades, made with layers of crispy, chewy meringue cake with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

The iconic Swiss Pastry Shop "crunchy" Black Forest cake.Courtesy photo

The CultureMap Tastemaker Awards ceremony is sponsored in Fort Worth by Maker's Mark, Lone Star Beer, H-E-B, Saratoga Water, NXT LVL Event, and more to be announced. A portion of the proceeds benefit our nonprofit partner, the Fort Worth Food and Wine Foundation.