On the quest for a sweet filling for their thin yet supple empanada encasement, 5411 owner Nicolas Ibarzabel and his team immediately turned to a consistent crowd-pleaser: “You just can’t go wrong with Nutella.” Though an unlikely flavor in Argentina, the banana and Nutella combo satisfies that sweet tooth and still lets the integrity of the dough shine.

Owners Laura and Luis Perea have baked some of Chicago’s finest cakes, originally from their Pilsen bakery and now from three additional locations, including one based on a margarita. Their take on America’s favorite tequila cocktail starts with a vanilla, tequila and lime cake that is iced in a white chocolate buttercream and topped with citrus-zested whipped cream and fresh berries. Why not drink your margarita and eat it too?

Chiles en nogada — a specialty of Mexican Independence celebrations — can be tough to find on menus outside of the month of September due to the labor-intensive process. Though not truly a dessert, the sweet walnut cream sauce that smothers a mild green pepper, stuffed with ground meat, tomatoes, onion, and bits of fruits and nuts, carefully mitigates the border between sweet and savory. Owner Irma Enriquez makes her family’s Chiles en Nogada all year long with three kinds of fruit (peach, pear and apple) and three nut varieties (cashews, almonds and pecans).

A solid start to any Mexican meal, chef Carlos Gaytan flips the traditional guacamole into a delicate avocado pastry cream, subtly laced with vanilla and billowy enough to put any toast’s schmear to shame. Presented in an adorable puerquito (little piggy) molcajete surrounded by a smattering of edible leaves and flowers, he finishes the mousse with a few teensy cubes of strawberries (or other toppings, like pomegranate seeds, depending on the season) and cinnamon-sugar buenitos, bite-sized tortilla wedges intended to be dipped.

Debating between a cheese plate and a classic dessert? At suburban Libertyville’s high-caliber Milwalky Trace, chef Lee Kuebler bridges the gap for you by putting cheese right into the ice cream maker. He pairs this somewhat funky brie ice cream with a Bartlett pear, poached in port wine lending a vibrant burgundy hue. “It’s really the amalgamation of the end of a meal: port, cheese, dessert," he says.

Pizza for dessert after pizza for dinner? That’s a thing at Frank Grassano’s Neapolitan pizza haven in Lincoln Park — customers order dessert pizzas 20 to 30 times on weekend nights, in fact. Perhaps more aptly described as a Nutella quesadilla dusted with powdered sugar, the same “00” dough used for their classic pies gets par-baked in the 800-degree brick oven, just until it puffs up, then removed and gently stuffed with a hefty layer of Nutella.

Step back in time and into your Polish grandmother’s kitchen at Podhalanka, well-known for their cabbage soup and, of course, their pierogis. While said pierogis satisfy an urge for savory doughy dumplings, the farmer’s cheese blintzes follow the same comforting thread, as owner Helena Madej wraps a homemade farmer’s cheese (pressed unripened cheese, akin to cottage cheese but creamier and tangier, mixed with egg yolk, vanilla and a pinch of sugar) in a crepe-like pastry before quickly cooking on the stovetop with a turn of the wrist. Madej serves this faintly sweet roll-up with a tart sour cream and applesauce.

At one of Bon Appetit’s 50 Best New Restaurants, chef Nate Tano repurposes his naan dough by frying it like a beignet. More savory than ordinary doughnut dough, raised with baking soda and a bit more temperature sensitive, the naan lends a “savory, almost funky characteristic” that plays nicely with the dish’s accompanying sauce — a chai dulce de leche spiced with fennel, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, black tea and cashews. Tucked in the main menu, Tano offers his Anglo-Indian doughnut at both brunch and dinner.

The standard burrata bearer stays in the appetizer section of RPM’s ritzy Italian menu, but the prized cheese ball also found a reasonably priced vacation home — in desserts. Both dishes feature burrata from California’s Angelo and Franco, but the unusual sweetness (“so damn sweet,” says Chef Doug Psaltis) of this particular mozzarella encouraged the chef and his team to elevate that richness, as Psaltis churns to order the burrata, adds a dose of Kilgus Farmstead milk and a hint of sugar and stabilizer. The resulting cheesy gelato gets a sprinkle of sea salt, Tuscan basil, and “Neapolitan strawberries” — Mighty Vine tomatoes cooked down with vanilla and caramel.