From cookies and cakes to ice cream and pastries, Columbia is full of dessert offerings sure to be the perfect nightcap to game day, snack in between classes or reward for getting through a stressful test.

Eating sweet treats has actually been found to decrease stress, which clearly means we should all be eating more dessert. MOVE found some tasty prospects (you’re welcome).

**U Knead Sweets Bakery** is inviting from the start with its rows of macarons, mini cheesecakes, cannolis, cupcakes and other pastries visible from the windows of the bakery. Inside, there are other delicacies like the peanut butter dome, a peanut butter mousse on top of a thin layer of chocolate cake and coated in a decadent chocolate shell. Even more surprising? It’s not cloyingly sweet, but rather sweet with a little bit of saltiness from the peanut butter.

U Knead Sweets has mastered the sweet/salty combo, also evident in its salted caramel macaron. The bakery seems to be one of the only places in Columbia that serves the classic French macaron. It has quite the variety including red velvet, mint chocolate chip, strawberry, chocolate, tira Mizzou (a Tiger-themed take on tiramisu) and vanilla Hello Kitty-shaped macarons. Its desserts were a little on the expensive side with macarons at about $1.75 per cookie and the miniature desserts about $5 each. However, they were well worth a little splurging.

Students flock to **Hot Box Cookies** to get their cookie fix. It is are perfect for late night cravings, as it’s are open until 2:00 a.m. On top of that, Hot Box offers specialty cookies such as red velvet and cookies ‘n crème as well as cookie favorites like chocolate chip, M&M, oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodle. Hot Box’s cookies are rich, warm, creamy and gooey — an ideal snack or late night treat.

While the cookies themselves are rich, their prices are cheap at $1 for classic cookie flavors and $1.25 for specialty cookie flavors.

For a spot with a lot of variety and fun holiday-themed desserts, look no further than **The Upper Crust**. They have a wide array of options ranging from miniature cakes and biscotti to last month’s Halloween-themed treats like eyeball cake pops and mummy pumpkin-chocolate chip squares.

The miniature cakes come in every flavor under the sun, from apple spice to all-American chocolate. Holiday-themed treats, like eyeball cake pops made from moist red velvet cake, offer a fun take on a delicious classic. It’s also very affordable, as most of the desserts cost between $1 and $3.

Treat yo’ self, MOVErs.