The dessert emoji everyone uses, and what each one means
Shortcake is the slice of cake: sponge, cream and a strawberry on top. It is the plain "dessert" or "cake" emoji in most chats, and on Slack, Discord and GitHub the shortcode :cake: gives you this one, not the birthday cake. Birthday Cake is the whole cake with lit candles, so it says "happy birthday" on its own; the Birthday Emoji collection has the party around it. Cupcake is the cute one, used for bakeries, frosting and as a pet name. Pie covers apple pie, pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and Pi Day on March 14.
Doughnut is a frosted ring with sprinkles, pink on most phones and chocolate-glazed on Apple's, and doubles as a joke emoji for "I donut care". Cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, which is why it pairs so naturally with Glass of Milk. Chocolate Bar shows a bar with its foil peeled back, Candy is one wrapped sweet, and Lollipop is the swirled fairground kind. Together is the standard candy stash, from trick-or-treat hauls to a sweet-tooth confession.
The cold ones are easy to mix up. Soft Ice Cream is soft serve in a cone, Ice Cream is scoops in a bowl, a sundae, and Shaved Ice is a mound of ice with coloured syrup, the Japanese kakigōri or a snow cone. Custard is a caramel pudding, the flan or crème caramel that Japan calls purin; it is the emoji people find when they type "pudding" or "flan".
Cake emoji meaning: slang, flirting and what it means from a guy or a girl
Most of the time and mean exactly what they show: dessert, a celebration, a sweet mood. Searches for "cake emoji meaning from a guy" exist because "cake" is also slang for a curvy backside, so next to a photo, or when it is nobody's birthday, can be a compliment or a flirt. The same goes for Cherries, which in flirty messages stand in for body parts or for being "a virgin", and for Lollipop and Soft Ice Cream, which in dating-app bios are sometimes innuendo rather than food.
Softer readings are more common. Cupcake sent to a person means "cutie" or "sweetheart", the emoji version of calling someone a cupcake; on TikTok it also tags baking and "soft" aesthetics. Honey Pot is "honey" as in the pet name, and Strawberry is sweet, pink and girly. Face Savoring Food and Drooling Face are how people react to a dessert photo, and Tooth with a candy, , is the joke way to admit a sweet tooth.
Japanese and Chinese sweets in the emoji set
Because the first emoji came from Japanese phones, the sweets have a Japanese accent. Dango is three rice dumplings on a skewer in pink, white and green, the hanami dango eaten under the cherry blossoms. Roasted Sweet Potato is yaki-imo, the winter street snack sold from carts. is kakigōri, is purin, and even is drawn as the strawberry shortcake that Japanese families buy for Christmas.
Mooncake, added in 2018, is the dense pastry shared at the Mid-Autumn Festival, so it turns up every autumn alongside and lantern emoji; the Chinese New Year Emoji collection has the rest of the festival set. Fortune Cookie joined a year earlier; the cookie itself is an American invention from Japanese-immigrant bakeries in California and is rarely seen in China.
Dessert emoji combos for captions, cravings and bakeries
A dessert emoji combo works best as a small plate: two or three sweets plus one thing that sets the scene. is coffee and cake, is milk and cookies, is a brunch stack, is an ice cream run. For a craving, lead with the face: or . For a bakery or café post, put the cutlery in, , so it reads as "dessert is served" rather than a random pile of food.
For a softer, aesthetic look, frame one sweet with text symbols rather than stacking emoji: ｡ ｡ or . The Cute & Kawaii Symbols and Aesthetic Symbols collections have the frames; the Coffee & Tea Emoji collection has more to drink with it, and Fruit & Vegetable Emoji the toppings.
How to type dessert emoji on iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac and Discord
On an iPhone or on Android, open the emoji keyboard and type the sweet's name in the search field: "cake", "ice cream", "candy" or "donut" all work, and "dessert" brings up the cake and pudding family. On Windows press the Windows key . (period) to open the emoji picker; on a Mac press Control Command Space. Tap an emoji in the symbol grid to copy it and open its page.
On Discord, Slack and GitHub you can type the shortcodes instead: :cake: , :birthday: , :cupcake: , :pie: , :doughnut: , :cookie: , :chocolate_bar: , :candy: , :lollipop: , :icecream: for the cone and :ice_cream: for the bowl, :shaved_ice: , :custard: and :honey_pot: .
Symbols
36Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Cakes, pies and bakery
The cake slice, the birthday cake and everything from the bakery counter.
Chocolate, candy and honey
Wrapped sweets, a melted pot of chocolate and the honey that goes on top.
Ice cream, shaved ice and pudding
The cold ones: soft serve, a sundae, a mound of syrupy shaved ice and a wobbly caramel pudding.
Japanese and Chinese sweets
Dango on a skewer, a mooncake, a fortune cookie and a roasted sweet potato, all from the Japanese and Chinese emoji sets.
Toppings and sweet-tooth faces
The fruit that sits on the cake, and the faces people send when they want some.
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyDessert & Sweets Emoji combos
15Worth knowing
- Twelve of the fourteen sweets in Unicode's "food-sweet" subgroup, from to , arrived together in Unicode 6.0 in 2010, inherited from Japanese carrier emoji. Pie followed in 2017 and Cupcake in 2018, and through Emoji 17.0 no new sweet has been added since.
- On Slack, Discord and GitHub the shortcode :cake: produces Shortcake, while is :birthday:. Many birthday messages typed as :cake: end up with a slice instead of the candle cake.
- Fortune cookies are not Chinese: they trace back to Japanese-immigrant bakeries around San Francisco and Los Angeles in the early 1900s and spread through Chinese-American restaurants. In China itself they are a curiosity.
- is named Custard in Unicode, but in Japan the same dessert is purin, a caramel pudding sold in every convenience store, and most keyboards also find it when you type "flan" or "pudding".
- Snapchat shows next to a friend's name on their birthday, if they have added the date to their profile. It is one of the few places an emoji appears automatically rather than being typed.
Questions people ask
8What are the dessert emojis?
The core set is Shortcake, Birthday Cake, Cupcake, Pie, Doughnut, Cookie, Chocolate Bar, Candy, Lollipop, Custard, Honey Pot, Soft Ice Cream, Ice Cream and Shaved Ice. Add Dango, Mooncake and Fortune Cookie for Asian sweets, and from the bakery.
How do I copy and paste dessert emoji?
Tap or click any emoji in the grid on this page to copy it, then paste it into your message or caption. Each group and the combos copy as a whole string.
What does the cake emoji mean from a girl or a guy?
Usually dessert, a celebration or a sweet mood. When it is nobody's birthday and it sits next to a photo, or can be slang for a curvy backside, so read it as a compliment or a flirt in that context.
What does the cupcake emoji mean?
is a cute, soft emoji: bakeries, frosting, baking day. Sent to a person it means "cutie" or "sweetheart", the way you would call someone a cupcake. On TikTok it also tags a soft, pastel aesthetic.
Is there a pudding emoji?
The closest is Custard, a caramel pudding or flan. There is no Christmas pudding, brownie, cheesecake or macaron emoji yet; people use or for those, and for anything chocolate.
What does the ice cream emoji mean in slang?
and almost always mean ice cream, a treat or summer. In dating-app bios and flirty chats is sometimes innuendo, like and , so look at what it is next to before reading it that way.
Is there an Indian sweets emoji?
No, there is no ladoo, gulab jamun or barfi emoji. For mithai people combine what exists: for a sweet, and for the syrup and milk, for a milky pudding, often with for Diwali.
What are good dessert emoji combos?
Short ones read best: for coffee and cake, for milk and cookies, for an ice cream run, for candy, for a craving and for "dessert is served".
