BAKED AFTER DARK
Hoppen Hierarchy: ★★★⭑
District: Pop-up
Sweet treats served in the PM hours
Perfect For: Baked Goods
Standout Dishes: Cinnamon Roll; Chocolate Chip Cookie; S’mores Cookie
Given the nature of their early hours, most bakeries and cookie shops close in the early afternoon. There’s nothing wrong with this, but what happens when your sweet tooth hits in the PM?
That’s where Baked After Dark comes in.
This bakery understands its clientele. After first gaining customer’s attention in the local farmers markets, Baked After Dark briefly had a storefront in Benson, but has since pivoted. It now offers its sweet treats at pop-ups and at Her Company, a cooperative of women-owned businesses off of 156th and Q.
Cookies are what this bakery is known best for, and with good reason. Their confections are chewy and have a pleasant sandy texture, and the bakers’ creativity ensures there will always be some interesting cookies alongside the classics.
Ironically enough, however, arguably the best item at this late-night bakery is one most closely associated with breakfast.
That would be the Cinnamon Roll (featured in the header photo). This massive confection is light, fluffy, and flowing with cinnamon and brown sugar filling, giving it both sweetness and warmth. Its adorned with a small mountain of cream cheese frosting that would threaten to overwhelm the dish. But the frosting isn’t overly sweet and provides good balance to the doughy base. This is a top 3 cinnamon roll in Omaha.
Despite the popularity of its cinnamon roll, Baked After Dark is best known for its cookies, of which you’ll find 12-18 varieties beckoning behind display cases when you visit. These offerings, some of which change with the seasons, range from classic to creative, allowing for a customized dessert experience.
Baked After Dark’s cookie prowess might be best showcased in the most well-known cookie: the classic Chocolate Chip. The cookie itself is soft and buttery, with just a touch of crisp texture on the exterior, and it tastes of sweet brown sugar and caramel-y butterscotch. It’s absolutely packed with chocolate chips, which add both sweetness and texture contrast.
Pro tip: if you have willpower to make it home without eating them, pop these cookies in the microwave for about 15 seconds to give them that gooey, pull-apart, “just out of the oven” cookie experience.
Baked After Dark has perfected the art of classic cookies, such as:
- Frosted Sugar: This cookie is especially moist, and the added frosting doesn’t make it too sweet. The piping makes these confections a gorgeous addition to any party.
- Snickerdoodle: With a sweet, tangy taste and a crunchy cinnamon crust, this pillow-y cookie has a bit of a cracked surface but maintains a buttery chewiness.
- Peanut Butter: Salty and sweet with a touch of caramel, these cookies are denser than many of the others. They’re remarkably soft with a crumbly edge.
Baked After Dark excels at making excellent versions of tried-and-true cookies, but it also has the creativity to test what other foods would look like in cookie form:
- S’mores: It’s your favorite campfire treat, but in cookie form. The cookie itself is a dense, cinnamon-forward treat that’s topped with a marshmallow fluff and a solidified chocolate disc. Maybe it’s just in my head, but I even sense a slight smokiness, evoking campfire memories.
- Red Velvet: Chewy and tasting of mild chocolate, this play on a red velvet cake balances the sweetness with a slight tang and floral flavor in the white chocolate chips.
- Chocolate Caramel Pretzel: A great balance of salty and sweet, this cookie if firm, yet a bit runny and oozy in caramel-forward sections. Broken-up pretzels are interspersed to add salt and crunch.
- Chocolate Peanut Butter: If a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup and a buttery cookie had a baby, this would be it. This soft, chewy chocolate cookie is studded with peanut butter chips, and it’s a must-try for Reese’s lovers.
Baked After Dark is a cookie emporium. There are no wrong choices here; each cookie brings unique, delicious flavors to the table.
And best yet, you don’t have to wake at the crack of dawn to score these confections. Whether you swing by after work, stop in for an after-dinner dessert, or stumble across it after a night at the bars, Baked After Dark bucks traditional bakery hours to great success.