The State of the Union address sends much of Washington into wonk mode, but there’s more to Tuesday night than takeout and C-SPAN: This year, District dwellers can tune into desserts by the capital’s best chefs, and bountiful champagne.

The evening of indulgence, dubbed “A Sugar and Champagne Affair,” benefits animals, if not New Year’s diets. Todd and Ellen Gray, co-owners of downtown’s Equinox Restaurant and hosts of next week’s bubbly banquet, send all proceeds from the event to the Washington Humane Society’s law enforcement officers and humane education programs.

The scene at Dupont Circle’s Hotel Palomar promises to be one worthy of cake-lover Marie Antoinette, as guests and their dogs eye elaborate chocolate creations and humbler sweets.

The pastry chef at Caf� Saint-Ex on the U Street corridor, Lizzy Samuel, will be serving up one of her most popular desserts: honey goat cheesecake with a ginger-molasses cookie crust accompanied by caramelized apples.

“I don’t have a huge sweet tooth — I’m not over the top,” she said. Desserts “don’t have to be stacked three feet high and have 20 components.” Samuel’s luscious-yet-light cheesecake is neither too sugary nor overly pungent, and both the cheese and apples are locally supplied.

The creativity doesn’t end with treats for humans. Along with Vidalia’s pastry chef, Caitlin Kelly, Samuel last week was toying with bacon, liver and other canine favorites to design a doggie dessert. In a friendly competition set to air on Fox, each cook’s kibble would be judged on camera by an animal panel.

“The pastry chef community in D.C. is so friendly and fraternal,” Saint-Ex chef Barton Seaver, who will attend the event with Samuel, said. “This is a fun way to promote the restaurants and support a cause.”

Sugar and Champagne was born five years ago from a quiet evening of TV-watching at the Gray home. Ellen Gray and her son were watching an episode of Animal Planet’s “Animal Cops,” which tracks police units dedicated to apprehending animal abusers. Gray, who volunteered at the Washington Humane Society while a University of Maryland student, decided to follow up on her interest in anti-cruelty law enforcement.

“We get asked to put together so many fundraisers,” said Gray, a veteran of the nationwide charity feast Taste of the Nation. “There’s so much manpower, but this was a grassroots, homegrown thing. … I just started putting it together: sweets, animals, champagne — a celebration.”

The first Sugar and Champagne night, held at the Monaco Hotel in Chinatown, brought out 120 guests and raised about $5,000, Gray recalled. At last year’s celebration at the Fairmont Hotel, 300 guests raised $25,000 for animal law enforcement units and in-school programs teaching children how to take care of their pets.

This year, Samuel and Kelly will be joined by Lebanese Taverna’s Homayon Karimy, Restaurant Eve’s Todd Thrasher and Bebo Trattoria’s Roberto Donna. Chef Jeffrey Potter of Market Salamander in Loudoun County, Va., will arrive bearing a passionfruit-and-cassis mousse with milk chocolate and Cobra vanilla ganache, named for Southeast Asian vanilla beans.

“It’s got to be a happy medium,” Potter said of the pastry chef’s dueling dessert concerns, visuals and flavor. “I know people say you eat with your eyes, and it’s certainly true, but if you raise expectations that much, it’s a disappointment.”

Potter will bring other delights: antipasto dishes for guests whose tastes run more savory than sweet, and his family’s two dogs, a Yorkie puppy and a black Labrador, who previously served as a police dog herself. Homemade cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery will complement the bruschetta, sausages, sopressata and grilled marinated vegetables in Potter’s arsenal.

Gray said such counterbalance is crucial to a successful Sugar and Champagne, but she offered a mouth-watering catalogue of pastries and candies that have rocked the night in past years.

Michel Richard’s Citronelle has provided �clairs, Equinox has fried donut holes and dipped the warm jewels in cr�me anglaise, and The Fairmont’s in-house pastry chef melded dog bowls out of melted chocolate, Gray recalled. Morou Ouattara, who departed Jack Abramoff’s defunct Signatures for his own bo�te, Farrah Olivia, has crafted handmade lollipops.

The benefit, for which tickets cost $75 and can be purchased at www.sugarandchampagne.com, will bring more than just culinary decadence, as Traer Scott, who spent a year following pups in search of owners, will sell signed copies of her book, Shelter Dogs. Gray will escort her two German Shepherds, Zeus and Augustus (named for the legendary chef Augustus Escoffier, of course).

And if a policy guru or political pug craves a State of the Union fix, not to worry. Organizers will have TVs on hand to keep tabs on the Capitol Hill action.