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Business & Tech

Christmas Edition: Sweet Treats Under $6

From fat-free cupcakes to frozen yogurt, your sweet tooth is in good hands.

A big sweet tooth and a small budget made for a day of seeking out affordable, delicious desserts in Santa Monica. Here are five choice destinations.

1. 

It makes sense that a café on Montana would have a trendy array of desserts, including fat-free cupcakes known as the "Skinny Cupcake." The red velvet was gooey and tasted so rich that it was impossible to tell where the cupcake got its fluffiness without the fat. I was tempted by its full-fat counterpart, which sat nearby, but the fat-free version was satisfying enough. Tip: Try the skinny chocolate cupcake, too.

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Price for a cheap, sweet dessert: $4

2. 

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An even better reason to visit the  in Downtown Santa Monica and read all day comes in the form of a sugar rush. The frozen yogurt at this café is constantly rotating in flavors–chocolate, strawberry and peach are among them–but the plain vanilla yogurt is out-of-this-world sweet and rich. After verifying that it was in fact nonfat, suspicion didn't subside.

Price for a cheap, sweet dessert: $2.50-$3.50, varying by size

3.

Tiramisu is a difficult dish to get just right. The chocolate flakes and whipped cream are just the start of the textured dessert. Urth Caffe nails it all the way through with a creamy and slightly crunchy treat that is wonderfully addicting. OK, so we busted the piggybank slightly with this one, but it's worth the splurge.

Price for a cheap, sweet dessert: $6.75

4.

Be prepared for a nostalgic desserts at Schmerty's Cookies. I ordered the monstrosity of a cookie that is the semi-sweet chocolate chip and ate it quicker than will be admitted. The slightly melted chips made the slightly crunch cookie irresistible. The price was right, too.

Price for a cheap, sweet dessert: $1.50 apiece or $18 a dozen

5.

Three words: caramel nut bar. Expectations were high for the caramel bars, but this nutty and rich bar was insanely sweet. Seeming to ooze with caramel, the show-stealing texture of the bar left a sticky sweet mess behind on the plate. It was sugary goodness down to the very last bite.

Price for a cheap, sweet dessert: $3.25 per cupcake (including the stuffed ones); $5 for three Cupcake Babies

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