I was reading an industry rag today where the feature article touted the latest hot trend in desserts: smaller desserts, but more of them.
Seems the trend in several fashionable places is to feature significantly smaller servings of desserts, sort of using the 'small plates' principles on the dessert course.
Hey, makes sense to me. The days when I want a 'mile high pie' of gargantuan sweets is long past. I'm happy with a bite of this, a taste of that.
One of the most exquisite desserts I ever had was one made in the Italian style: a scoop of silky delicious vanilla bean gelato with a couple of drops of very old treacly balsamic vinegar drizzled on the top. Perfect!
However, since we're talking about American trends here, while they're downsizing the desserts, the trend is to multiply them...so while we're seeing smaller desserts, we're also seeing more of them on the plate. Nothing exceeds like excess, I guess, even when you're going smaller.