Get Sweet With National Dessert Day

National Dessert Day may have been dreamed up by ecard makers or an opportunistic pastry chef somewhere, but it sounds like a easy event to celebrate: bake your favorite dessert or swing by a local purveryor of all things delicious and pick out a treat.

For all their health-consciousness, Santa Cruzans know about sinful desserts.

The new was not only talked about by Vice President Joe Biden, but since the organic and locally produced creamery opened, it's had lines out its downtown door almost every day.  

The same goes for on Ocean Street, which is always busy day and night and the Cold Stone Creamery, where ice cream making is a show. Salt Water Taffy aton the Boardwalk has been featured on  the TV show Road Tested on the Food Network and its downtown location was one of the first places to dip an Oreo into chocolate. Bakeries abound, including ,   and , which serves old world cakes and just got a makeover for the TV show Restaurant: Impossible.

, next to Bookshop Santa Cruz, makes no attempt to hide what it serves. For a quick hit of sugar, there is the and for the healthier desserts, there are frozen yogurt shops including Froyo, Swirl and .

Watsonville is a diamond in the rough of the Santa Cruz County food scene. , tucked into a business park near the airport, whips up creative cakes, cookies sold at lots of local stores and even dog biscuits, so everyone in the family gets a treat.

The Monterey Cake and the Dream Cake are the most popular offerings, according to employee Kristy Bertone, and their dog treats are sold in 35 college bookstores around the country.

With so many eateries in Capitola and Soquel, desserts abound. The go-to for baked sweets is clearly , with half the interior dedicated to desserts. The berry parfait is a tasty one-person treat and the cakes, although pricy, are ornate and fitting for special occasions.

is the Village ice cream shop, and it's easy to forget that has a huge selection itself. Try the olallieberry and honey flavor if you're trying to go super local. The berry, which is a hybrid of raspberries, blackberries and dewberries, was originally developed in Oregon, but . The name olallie comes from Chinook jargon meaning berry.