Dessert options at Walla Walla restaurants offer a pleasant alternative to a full course meal for students and parents desiring a morning treat, afternoon pastry or a late-night dessert. The Colville Street Patisserie, Whitehouse-Crawford, and Cookie Tree Bakery and Café present an assortment of dessert experiences.

Colville Street Patisserie:
Located a short distance away from campus at 40 S. Colville, The Colville Street Patisserie offers a sizable array of French pastries, gelatos, coffees and desserts inside their cozy coffeehouse interior.
In 2008, Tiffany Cain and David Christiansen bought the patisserie and added to the menu options.
“We’ve expanded where we can,” said Cain. “We have a lot of new dessert options, homemade sodas, and also a few savory lunch items, like our pork and ginger turnover.”
Some of the most popular desserts include the crème brulee, the white chocolate mousse, and the Quign Aman –– a delicious pastry coated in a light sugar glaze and a spray of sea salt (which I sampled) – and Cain’s personal favorite, the chocolate caramel tart. Nearly everything at the patisserie is made from scratch, including syrups for espressos and sodas. Cain and Christiensen get many of their ingredients locally.
“We have a food service, but we rely heavily on local farms and the farmer’s market,” said Cain. “We also get organic milk from Pure Eire [a Columbia Basin grass-fed milk farm], which we’re excited about.”
The patisserie also offers a variety of wines, beers and refreshing homemade sodas.
“I’ve always liked soda, but found them too sweet for my taste,” said Cain. “I decided it would be fun to make them to my liking, so we made flavors like blueberry and lime-basil.”
Although most of the dessert items cost around six dollars, most are large enough to share with friends. Whether stopping by for coffee or cake with the folks, be sure to check out the Colville Street Patisserie.

Whitehouse-Crawford Restaurant:
If you have a little extra time, cash and a car on your hands, Whitehouse-Crawford offers a delicious dessert experience. Located at 55 West Cherry Street, Whitehouse-Crawford was formerly an enterprising mill and furniture company before being transformed into this ambient, beautifully lit restaurant.
Although Whitehouse-Crawford co-owner and chef Jamie Gurin was not available for comment, he states on the Whitehouse-Crawford page that he carefully selects local ingredients, preparing them “with respect for technique and tradition and imbued with my own sense of creativity.” A good example of Gurin’s ingenuity is the lavender panna cotta: the soft cheese is infused with the unexpected, delicate yet strong flavor of lavender alongside a tart berry sauce.
When I went to Whitehouse-Crawford, I was lucky enough to go with a group of friends, and we were all able to sample nearly every item on the dessert menu. Some of the other desserts we sampled were the traditional vanilla bean crème brulee, a peach-almond turnover with blueberry-spice ice cream and a mouthwatering plum upside-down cake with sweet corn ice cream.
Dessert items are priced from seven to ten dollars, and most of them take a little time to prepare. The restaurant is also packed on weekends, so make sure to call ahead and reserve a table at (509)525-2222. Whitehouse-Crawford is open from 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and from 5 p.m.- midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Cookie Tree Bakery and Café:
Located at 23 S. Spokane St, Cookie Tree is a cozy restaurant that makes all of their desserts from scratch. Owners Doug and Julie Hill, who purchased and remodeled the building in March of 1990, worked at the original Cookie Tree in Pendleton, OR.
“I worked there part-time for a couple of years, and Doug and I ran it for the owners for a short time while they were away,” said Julie Hill. “The owners there were looking to start more Cookie Trees and we liked the business, so we came up with a deal with them to buy the recipes, the name, and some training. We liked Walla Walla, found a location that we thought would work, and moved forward.”
Along with desserts, Cookie Tree also makes bread, pie, quiche and pancakes from scratch. Although most of the ingredients come from restaurant suppliers, Cookie Tree uses fresh fruit from Andy’s Market and local Klicker Berries.
Cookie Tree sells a variety of baked goods including chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake, French cream pie, and lemon bars. Julie Hill’s homemade cinnamon rolls are also a big hit.
“Our kids’ favorite has always been the cinnamon rolls, probably because they are so big,” said Hill. “They love them warmed up and just recently, we started slicing them, dipping them in our egg batter, and making French toast with them. This is on our breakfast menu and was inspired by how much our kids loved eating them this way.”
Although the restaurant hours are limited –– Monday through Saturday from 8-11 –– the pastries are especially fresh in the morning.
“We open early because Doug is there, baking,” said Hill. “We have gotten quite a regular base of early customers that wouldn’t know how to start their day if Doug wasn’t there to give them some coffee and a cinnamon roll or muffin.”