Grazing isn’t just for antipasti any more. A dessert buffet on a tray gives everyone a chance to sample a little bit of everything—or pick and choose their sweet treat. Ours is dressed up for Thanksgiving with traditional pies, turkey-shaped cookies and chocolates and fruit and flowers in fall colors, but a dessert graze board is a sweet idea any time of year.
To DIY your own dessert graze board:
-Start with a pie or two. A pie takes up space and center stage, inviting you to fill the space around it with bite-sized treats. Here, we went for Thanksgiving favorites, pumpkin and pecan. Come summer, you might swap those out for cherry and blueberry.
-Mix things up! Combine homemade specialties with store-bought treats for variety and ease, placing your cookies and muffins next to chocolates and bakery items like our French macarons.
-Go for the gold! Fill in sections with foil-wrapped candies which add color and shine.
-Select sweets strategically. You’ll be packing ‘em in, so steer clear of cookies or brownies that crumble, unwrapped chocolates that melt easily, or anything so sticky or gooey
-Pick some fruit: Include a few fruits to go along with the treats. We went for grapes, clementines and satsuma, which fit in with our autumnal color palette.
Stack em up! When it comes to cookies, pile them one on top of the other so you won’t need to refill.
-Be good to-go: Set out bags, boxes or other to-go containers so guests can fill them with extra sweets to take as favors at night’s end—that way, they’ll keep grazing long after they’ve gone home. It’s your dessert, decor and favor all in one!
1. Leaf Cookies, 2. Whoopie Pies, 3. Gold Almonds, 4. Chocolate Turkey, 5. Pecan Pie, 6. Tray, 7. Gold Spoons
