Party Style Dessert Charcuterie Board
This easy party recipe "dessert tray" features craveable gourmet cookies
Joanne Adirim
Founder & Executive Pastry Chef
FEB 8, 2022
For 25 years, Joanne has served as the Founder and Executive Pastry Chef at Hannahmax Baking. Known for her best in class reputation, Joanne and her baking company have crafted gourmet desserts for fine dining establishments, coffee cafes, hotels, & grocery companies across North America. In 2022, she launched the Cookie Chips® Baking Mix, a cookie mix that's shaking up home baking with its bakery quality results. In From The Pastry Kitchen, she shares her industry earned expertise with the home baking community.
With the Super Bowl just around the corner, we need to start planning our snacks.
While the food choices are endless, it's important that whatever you serve to your food loving crowd be on point and delicious. This is where a fantastic dessert charcuterie board comes in handy. (Dessert tray, party platter, this healthyish recipe is perfect for any of these.) With just a little bit of planning, this party hit becomes super simple to assemble.
Now if you're asking yourself what is a charcuterie board or how to make a charcuterie board, this article is for you. I put together an easy, beginner charcuterie that is always a big hit at my events. We'll also cover what ingredients to buy for a charcuterie board. Instead of your classic cheese and crackers charcuterie, I got creative and used our crispy crunchy, potato chip like Cookie Chips®. These thin crispy chocolate chip cookies work great with sweet dips & dessert spreads, fruit & candies, and all the delicious things that you'll have on your healthyish dessert board. Here's how I made it happen.
The Easy Dessert Charcuterie Recipe
Let your creativity flow when plating your dessert platter!
Add height to your board by plating larger snack items vertically. We used inexpensive square glass vases from Amazon.
Just because we snack healthy doesn't mean we can't include a few sweet treats. We used Darrell Lea Australian licorice.
The Dessert Tray
1. Cookie Chips® Baking Mix | Chocolate Chip - Before Super Bowl Sunday, we made our Cookie Chips® and froze them. These cookies freeze beautifully by the way.
2. Fruit - I used a mix of both fresh and dried fruits. I live in Florida, and banana chips are everywhere. I piled these up on the board. Grapes are also excellent for these boards. They are not only beautiful to add to your board, but they also help take up space, and everyone loves them. We also used strawberries, blueberries, and dried apricots. Then we thinly sliced an apple, squeezed a lemon over it to prevent browning, and decoratively placed the slices on the board.
3. Nuts - We used cashews and almonds and pistachios from Wonderful Pistachios. You can use any nuts you like, or leave them out if allergies are a concern.
4. Pretzels - I gave our board some height with Snyder's pretzel rods that I placed in a small glass container.
5. Chocolate - You have to have some chocolate! I included squares of Ghirardelli caramel filled chocolates and other chocolates that I broke up from bars. You can find a great assortment of chocolate at Whole Foods.
6. Chocolate-covered nuts - Instead of peanut M&M's, I used a fancier brand that is supposed to be "better for you" called Unreal. Whether it's this brand or another, it's nice to have chocolate-covered nuts or anything chocolate-covered on the board.
7. Licorice - I also included a red strawberry soft licorice from Darrell Lea. The licorice gives a nice pop of color. They're also an excellent nosh item.
8. Dips - Lastly, I made two sweet dips for the Cookie Chips®. A Nutella dessert dip and a lemon mascarpone dessert dip. Read the recipes below.
Lemon Mascarpone Dessert Dip Recipe
Ingredients
• Mascarpone cheese - 8 oz
• Cream cheese, room temperature - 4 oz
• Powdered sugar, sifted - 5 tbsp
• Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
• Lemon zest - from one lemon
• Heavy cream - ½ cup
• Crushed pistachios - ½ cup
To Make
1. In a mixer with the whip attachment, whip the heavy cream to a stiff peak. Scrape out your cream into a separate bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Change the mixer attachment to the paddle attachment. In your mixing bowl, add cream cheese and powdered sugar, and beat until smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and continue beating until completely smooth.
3. Add mascarpone to the cream cheese and blend until smooth. Mix in lemon juice and lemon zest.
4. Lastly, gently blend in the whipped cream until thoroughly combined. Place in a container until you are ready to use.
5. Place in a decorative bowl and sprinkle the top with crushed pistachios when ready to serve.
Nutella Dessert Dip Recipe
Credit for this recipe goes out to Jaclyn Bell, with her awesome Nutella cheesecake dip recipe.
Ingredients
• Heavy cream - 1 cup or 8 fl oz
• Cream cheese, room temperature - 8 oz
• Powdered sugar, sifted - 3 tbsp
• Nutella - ¾ cup
To Make
1. In a mixer with the whip attachment, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Place in refrigerator until ready to use.
2. Change the mixer attachment to the paddle attachment. Add cream cheese with powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and continue beating until no lumps remain.
3. Add in the Nutella and blend until smooth.
4. Add in half of the whipped cream, blending gently, then add in the second half of your whipped cream, blending gently until thoroughly combined.
5. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Crispy crunchy cookies in 15 minutes.
Make bakery quality, thin & crispy cookies in 15 minutes. These pastry chef crafted, easy bake Cookie Chips® are so delicious.
Like everything that I bake, this mix uses artisan, non GMO, simple ingredients, and no artificial junk.
Let's get baking!
Joanne Adirim, Founder & Executive Pastry Chef
Get the mix from the recipe. ↓