9 Iconic '80s Desserts That Give Us Major Nostalgia

Cooking trends come and go. One generation's new and buzzy treasure is the next generation's passé trash. But then, does the generation after that start calling the first generation's food words like "classic" or "timeless?" What is old can be made new again. People are starting to revisit foods from the 1980s, and some of these dishes should've never gone away in the first place. Of course, in this article, we're focusing on dessert, and there's an argument to be made that no dessert should ever go away.

Then again, innovation makes the world go round. Some of these so-called classic foods are not that old. Gummy worms were invented shockingly recently — it only feels like they've been around forever because your own childhood seems like it was ages in the past. If you believe calendars, the 1980s began more than 40 years ago. That can't be right, though, because we seem to remember eating these desserts like it was only yesterday.

Desserts are inherently luxurious, so sometimes a little whimsy is in order. Sweet treats simply taste better when there's a fun little gimmick associated with them. Dirt cake and its single-serving sibling, dirt pudding, is a concoction made from chocolate cake, whipped topping, and gummy worms. There are plenty of other ingredients, of course, but the dirt, mud, and worm components are most important. Gummy worms were invented in 1981, some 60 years after the first gummy bears appeared on store shelves. With the arrival of gummy worms, it was only a matter of time before someone thought up something like dirt pudding.

Dirt pudding is a nostalgic treat, we assume, for literally anyone who attended primary school. Half the fun is in assigning ingredients to earthy elements. Crumbled cookies and chocolate pudding become "dirt" and "mud." Buried strawberries with their greens sticking up become "garden vegetables." Of course, gummy worms are the pièce de résistance. Just as any healthy ecosystem has an abundance of earthworms, so too does any good pudding have an abundance of gummy worms.

So-called icebox cakes — desserts that required chilling, not baking — were all the rage in the 1980s. The banana split cake, with its fresh fruit, whipped topping, and graham cracker crust, was a popular form of icebox cake. Whip this thing up using fresh but firm bananas. Since a banana split without maraschino cherries is not a banana split worth having, don't forget the red garnishes. Let it settle and rest for eight hours (not a moment less) to soften the graham crackers, and voilà! A cool, refreshing dessert for the warm weather months.

One reason icebox cakes may have fallen out of favor is the use of raw, beaten eggs — remember, these are no-bake desserts. You combine all of the ingredients, let it set in the fridge or freezer, and serve. Perhaps not an ideal way to use raw eggs. Happily, you can find icebox cake recipes that don't use raw eggs. Maybe try one of those if you want to bring this summer treat to the cookout.

Initially popular primarily among Eastern European immigrants and in Jewish delis, this visually stunning cake requires meticulous preparation. The body of the cake is seven thin layers of sponge, separated by a layer of chocolate or jam. Get all of the ratios right, and the effect is a show-stopping cross-section from the moment you slice into the cake. If the first mental image you conjure when you think of the '80s is one of neon and razzle-dazzle, maybe even Dazzler from the X-Men comics, then 7-layer cake is the cake for you.

If you're willing to spend the extra time and use some food coloring, you can call this rainbow cake. That would be a pretty '80s move, given how much higher-quality food dyes became in the decade, with its bright and colorful aesthetics. Alternatively, if you'd rather just use chocolate buttercream frosting, you can call this a dobos torte. Honestly, no one's going to be worried either way. Your dinner guests will likely just call it delicious.

If it's an old-school dessert, you can usually bet it features meringue or gelatin, and this one has both. Chiffon pie is a treat made by whipping meringue and fruit curd into a light topping that gets poured over graham cracker crust. While the pie is typically made with fruit curd, by the 1980s, you could find recipes for a filling made from Mars bars. Other recipes call for canned pumpkin. Whatever the flavor profile, the end texture is airy and fluffy, wonderfully delicate on the tongue. The name chiffon pie is a fitting allusion to the luxurious and lightweight fabric.

The pie was invented in the 1920s by a man named Monroe Boston Strause who, at the time, could've been called the most famous baker in the country. The relative ease of preparation combined with the sophisticated presentation of the dessert made chiffon pie a staple at potlucks in the 1980s.

Based on name alone, this dessert should still be everywhere — that is, gooey butter cake should be in more places besides just an ice cream flavor at Jeni's. This cake isn't much more than cream cheese, vanilla, and butter. Well, all that, and a bunch of confectioner's sugar added to the cake mix. The end result is soft, moist, and a reminder that ingredient lists can be kept pretty simple if you're willing to get decadent enough.

This dessert is famously associated with Paula Deen, but the celebrity chef did not invent the dish. Gooey butter cake originated in St. Louis in the 1930s, and lore suggests it happened when a German baker on the city's south side mixed up a couple of the ingredients for coffee cake. That first batch might've been a messy mistake, but it was the start of something golden. Gooey butter cake became massively popular in the 1980s, especially as a relatively simple treat to whip up for an office potluck.

Strawberry pretzel tart is another entrant into the mix it, set it, chill it genre of dessert. Some people even call this a salad, if you can believe that. The layers here are pretty basic: Crust, no-bake cheesecake filling, and strawberries. The truly show-stopping part comes from the pretzel crust, which, yes, also has plenty of brown sugar and butter. From there, it's essentially strawberry-topped cheesecake, and who doesn't love that?

Pretzels and cream cheese are a common pairing. Strawberries and cream cheese are a common pairing. Pretzels, cream cheese, and strawberries all in one? Now you've got a dessert going. One tip, though, is to try to eat this one within two days of making it. Yes, we're giving you permission to indulge, but there's a reason for it. After more than two days in the fridge, that pretzel crust can start to get soggy. It's still pretzels, brown sugar, and butter, so it's still delicious, but that all-important textural contrast won't last long.

A cute name for a very quaint dessert. Oatmeal scotchies are exactly what you might expect: Butterscotch and oatmeal, often in bar form. These cookies recall summer afternoons playing with neighborhood kids by the fishing hole, regardless of whether or not your childhood could fit in a Normal Rockwell painting. Okay, maybe butterscotch is a flavor associated with the elderly, but this dessert sounds awesome. They can be made as cookies, and that's certainly a delicious option, or you can opt for something almost like a butterscotch brownie in presentation, but an oatmeal cookie in taste. Pleasantly chewy but with some heartiness, it's easy to see why oatmeal scotchies were a crowd-pleaser back in the '80s.

Oatmeal cookies are traditionally made with raisins, with the first oatmeal raisin cookie recipe appearing in 1896. Butterscotch chips were first introduced in the middle of the 20th century, and it didn't take long for them to start showing up in oatmeal cookies. Finally, an oatmeal cookie mix-in that no one can mistake for a chocolate chip. 

Butter, chocolate chips, and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Combine it all in a bowl, chuck it in the microwave for a minute or so, stir, microwave again, refrigerate, and hey presto — dessert! Microwaves started becoming commonplace in the late 1970s, and by the middle of the 1980s, a quarter of homes in the United States had the appliance. You're not going to get a new kitchen toy if you're not going to use it. Might as well use it to make a quick, easy fudge. Recipes for this treat even made it to the Sears Auto catalog (via Reddit). 

If this decadent but quick-to-prepare fudge doesn't sound like the 1980s, what does? Honestly, how different is it from the microwaveable mug cake trend of the 2010s? Sometimes, a fad dish from decades ago seems silly or unappetizing. Sometimes, it seems like rediscovering lost sacred knowledge. Try microwave fudge squares for yourself and see which it is. Sprinkle some chopped nuts on top of the final product, if that sounds good to you. 

What was it with the '80s and no-bake desserts? Not that we're complaining. Frozen fruit salad was another dessert with layered ingredients that settled in the freezer until a single dessert unit formed. This dessert sounds sort of like the delirious ramblings of an elementary school student: Crispy cereal crust, fruit cocktail, whipped topping, and then freeze it all together. Honestly, we're sold, let's bring this one back. Some dishes like frozen fruit salad are too good to leave in the past.

As desserts go, this one seems especially easy to customize. Instead of canned fruit cocktail, why not try different fruit blends? That would certainly cut down on the added sugar. Different types of cereals can be used for crust. You can even substitute different flavors of whipped topping — there are a few more varieties of those floating around today than there were in the 1980s. Yeah, it's definitely a time for frozen fruit salad to make a comeback.