Hello friends!
The holiday season is fast approaching and that means parties! Woo hoo! This is such a busy time of year, and my motto is KISS – keep it simple stupid! One of my favorite things to throw together when I am hosting a gathering is a charcuterie board and here’s why I love them:
They are so easy to assemble and there is no cooking required
They make for optimal snacking while socializing – keeping things in small portions makes it so easy for guests to pick and nibble
They look nice
My friends Bridget and Casey wrote a really good tutorial on how to put together an amazing charcuterie board, and you can read that by clicking here. A traditional charcuterie board is a sampling of meats, cheeses and savory items.
For a fun twist, you can try a dessert charcuterie and create a sampling of sweets. This past summer I assembled a S’Mores charcuterie board for a gathering we hosted at the lake and it was a big hit! It also looked really pretty…
I followed the same steps you would use to assemble the traditional charcuterie Board, but just used s’more ingredients instead! Easy, cute and it came together so quickly!
We are hosted a small gathering of our house and I threw together a traditional charcuterie with meat and cheese, but also a dessert one. I am sharing the details with you here in case you would like to try this simple entertaining idea for yourself!
what to buy
The options are really endless here, but the goal is to display an assortment of sweets that you can serve to your guests instead of a traditional dessert. Think cookies, squares, chocolates, strawberries, grapes, chocolate covered nuts, mini chocolate bars. Let your sweet tooth be your guide!
I love baking and in a perfect world I would make all of the desserts myself. That is not my reality these days and my goal is to keep it simple and cost effective, so that means buying baked goods from the grocery store. If you find yourself in the same situation, don’t worry, there are so many yummy treat available! When shopping for my dessert charcuterie, the first stop was the bakery section, where I looked for pretty and small bite sized desserts like tarts and brownies. If you can find ones that are decorated, like these little brownies, it really makes for a nice presentation.
I also bought a pan of Nanaimo squares because those are my favorite.
Next up was the frozen section. My preferred grocery chain has an amazing house brand with lots of great frozen deserts, in small portions. There were so many to choose from, but I went with these.
After the main desserts were accounted for, I bought some chocolate covered almonds, Lindor chocolate, pistachios and fruit. I couldn’t resist these pretty little Satsuma oranges with the stems still on. Such a nice little touch!
Presentation
You need a board or flat tray and some small “dip” bowls. I like to use white or off white bowls so as not to distract from the desserts. Fill the bowls first with whatever you want to put in here. I did strawberries and chocolate covered almonds.
Next I arranged the grapes and oranges.
and then I started to add in the brownies, squares,tarts and mini cheesecakes. I think it looks more cohesive to keep these items all together.
The last step is to fill in any gaps with the remaining smaller items like the nuts and the wrapped chocolates.
And voila, you have a beautiful and impressive dessert charcuterie!
Doesn’t it look so pretty?
To make it festive, you can incorporate some Christmas desserts and chocolates. I opted for Peppermint Bark
and Christmas Hershey’s kisses…they are so cute!
This would be such an easy thing to serve on Christmas day, I find we are usually too full from dinner to really want dessert, but this would be a good alternative to anyone that doesn’t feel their meal is complete without a little something sweet.
I hope you have enjoyed this post, if you give this a try please share a photo with me, I would love to see what you create … you can find me on Facebook and Instagram (just click on the social media icons above) and you can share with and tag me there!
If you felt inspired by this and want to save it for later, you can easily Pin it. I have been on Pinterest quite a bit lately, saving lots of recipes, Christmas decorating ideas and lots of other good stuff, feel free to follow along!
