From Cronuts to Swedish Candy: How Sweet Treats Became the New Everyday Luxury

At any given hour, someone, somewhere is lining up for a pastel-glazed cookie or a $7 croissant, waiting in winding queues to obtain a much-desired pastry—and often snapping a photo before they even take a bite. 

Over the past few years, the “sweet treat” has quietly morphed from occasional indulgence to daily routine—a single, picture-perfect pastry or cookie offering comfort and aesthetic pleasure. On TikTok, creators film “hot girl walk and treat” videos, where a crumb-dusted croissant becomes the day’s main character. On Instagram, a delectable bonbon or pistachio éclair serves as both dessert and accessory. 

In the era of quiet luxury, tiny indulgences are replacing big splurges. From $12 designer doughnuts to glazed cake slices, sweet treats are becoming cultural currency—and they’re everywhere.

In trend-forward cities like New York and Los Angeles, the most coveted treats are priced and marketed like limited-edition fashion drops—small luxuries in a time of uncertainty.

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The Sweet Rebrand

To understand the moment, you have to understand the shift. Sweet treats today aren’t just about flavor—they’re about branding, storytelling and lifestyle.

The indulgence of a single dessert is now dressed up in high-concept packaging and aesthetic experiences. Sweet Rose Creamery in Los Angeles, for example, sells organic scoops made with locally sourced cream, and offers seasonal collaborations that feel closer to designer capsule collections than dessert specials. 

At L’Appartement 4F, a French-inspired bakery tucked into a Brooklyn brownstone, crowds gather for small-batch almond croissants piped to order and viral mini pink croissant cereal. And in the West Village, candy boutique Lil Sweet Treat offers Swedish confections in neon coloring with a kawaii-core twist, adopting the same pick-and-mix model that made Swedish candy company BonBon a viral sensation.

“There’s this fantasy built into every sweet,” said Kara Nielsen, a food trend forecaster and founder of The Sweet Professor, a consulting agency that analyzes trends in sweets and desserts. “Consumers are buying into a lifestyle via a cookie or a cone,” she told Observer.

The mentality mirrors post-pandemic shifts in fashion and beauty, where “dopamine dressing” and playful mini drops have emerged as a counterpoint to quiet luxury. In the food world, that means sweets with personality: matcha-dusted financiers, birthday cake-flavored cold brews, and cookies with cult followings and $10 price tags. 

According to Nielsen, this isn’t just a passing fad. It’s part of a broader trend toward “affordable luxury,” where an artisan pastry is framed as an accessible way to tap into indulgence. An $8 latte isn’t just a caffeine fix. It’s a break, a flex and a personal treat-yourself philosophy wrapped in biodegradable packaging.

This shift aligns with wider consumer behavior. McKinsey’s 2025 post-Covid-19 consumer report shows that shoppers are increasingly seeking moments of joy and control through small purchases, especially as larger financial milestones feel more out of reach. Gen Z, in particular, is redefining indulgence not as excess, but as balance.

The craving for small luxuries echoes the “lipstick index,” a theory that during economic downturns, consumers turn to affordable indulgences (like lipstick or, now, pastries) to lift their spirits without breaking the bank.

A Bite of Comfort

It’s not just about looks. Experts say sweet treats offer emotional release, offering something small and satisfying in a world that often feels overwhelming.

“We’re living in a high-stress, high-stakes moment,” Jennifer Berg, director of the graduate program in Food Studies at NYU, told Observer. “People crave small moments of softness, familiarity and pleasure. They may get them with a treat.”

That sentiment echoes the so-called “vibecession,” a term coined by Harvard Business Review to describe the dissonance between positive economic indicators and the general feeling that things are…not great. When jobs feel shaky and rent keeps climbing, spending $4 on a raspberry macaron becomes an act of resistance—or at least something within reach.

“When consumers post their treats on social media, it is a way to say, ‘I may not be thriving, but I’m treating myself,’” Berg said.

That sense of emotional ROI explains why even neighborhood shops are seeing record demand. Sweet Rose Creamery co-founder Shiho Yoshikawa told Observer that they’ve noticed people coming in more regularly—not just for birthdays or celebrations, but for solo treats.

“We make everything in batches with local ingredients because we believe people can taste the care,” Yoshikawa said. “The joy people get from something simple but well made. That’s what we are really selling.”

Elly Ross, co-founder of Lil Sweet Treat, has seen a similar effect since opening in 2024. “We want everyone walking in to feel like a kid in a candy shop again,” she said. “Sweets are nuggets of happiness, and you deserve to treat yourself, which is actually on the back of our bags.”

Aesthetics are at the heart of Ross’ business model. It starts with the storefront: Sleek but playful signage, a pastel color palette, and carefully arranged displays that reflect the brand’s minimalist sensibility. Online, Ross carries that vision through her TikTok account (@ellybellyeats), where she shares behind-the-scenes glimpses into the business with the same visual precision. The result is a brand that feels carefully curated but familiar, tapping into a sense of nostalgia while still staying fresh.

“Every single decision we make—from packaging to product layout—has a lot of thought and care. I think our community really appreciates those small details,” Ross told Observer.

That nostalgic thread runs through the products, too. The “mini burgers,” inspired by the gummy candies many customers remember from childhood, sold out almost immediately. “I think now more than ever, people are just looking for a little extra joy,” Ross said.

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From Cronuts to Cookies

If this sweets craze sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. In 2013, Dominique Ansel’s now-iconic cronut—a croissant-donut hybrid—sparked block-long lines at his SoHo bakery and catapulted the pastry to global fame, just two years after the shop opened its doors.

Around the same time, Milk Bar (founded in 2008) brought cakes and cereal milk soft serve to the mainstream. By the early 2010s, all of these treats were going viral on the then-new Instagram, where the platform’s initial glossy, curated aesthetic turned photogenic desserts into shareable status symbols. More recently, chains like Crumbl have taken the trend to TikTok, building followings with rotating menus and dramatic cookie reveals.

Now, independent bakeries market their releases like fashion houses drop new lines. Food creators like Rachel Brotman (@thecarboholic) and Karissa Dumbacher (@karissaeats) have turned sweet treat reviews into reliable content engines, building entire brands around which bakeries are “worth the hype.”

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Is the Trend Here to Stay?

With global instability, rising living costs and a growing collective burnout, the sweet treat has emerged as a small but powerful form of comfort.

And in a world where rent, groceries and gas are hurting your pockets just a bit more, spending $8 on a perfectly flaky kouign-amann feels almost reasonable—it’s a justifiable splurge.

In many ways, airy pastries and whimsical snacks have replaced the protein bars and calorie counting that once dominated wellness culture. But that doesn’t mean diet culture has disappeared. While pleasure-forward treats have gained ground, the tension between indulgence and restraint still lingers in the background. Even so, the craving for softness—and sensory pleasure—is hard to suppress.

That sense of small-scale indulgence is exactly why bakeries like L’Appartement 4F and shops like Levain have lines out the door. Scarcity, aesthetic packaging and playful flavors turn a $7 croissant into an object of desire. And for consumers, it’s less about the calories than the experience: standing in line, choosing the “right” flavor and sharing it online.

But beyond the social feed, the sweet treat boom is about seeking softness in a hard world. In an age of polarized politics, endless news alerts and economic anxiety, a cream-colored cookie or sugar-dusted scoop of organic ice cream offers more than just a sugar rush. It’s nostalgia. It’s a tiny escape. It’s a reward. It’s a childlike pleasure that feels like a quiet rebellion against the pressure to be disciplined, optimized and endlessly productive.

As long as there’s a need for comfort, beauty and low-stakes luxury, there will be space for pastries that double as social media content and emotional salve. 

And yes, someone will be in line tomorrow morning before 8 a.m., hoping that pistachio croissant didn’t sell out yet again. But, it’s not really about the croissant—it’s about the tiny thrill of having a treat worth waiting for.