Every other year, I host a holiday dessert party at my house. Okay, this is only the 2nd time I've done it and the first time was 2 years ago but it's my intent to keep having these every two years. Why every two and not annually? Mostly because I only go all out with Christmas decorating every other year so that's when it makes the most sense to have people over. If you saw the plethora of decorations I put up (and take down), you'd know why it's not an annual effort.
In any case, I thought I'd write about what it takes to host a dessert party and some tips and tricks that might be useful for anyone else. I'm also looking for helpful hints if anyone's got any. Entertaining doesn't come easily to me. I like having people over but I don't like hordes of people over. To me, a successful party isn't standing room only but having just enough people that you can actually talk to everyone and have real conversations. Meaningless small talk is torture. I like real interactions. I also don't cook, don't drink and am not equipped for having more than 8 people over if I want to serve a real sit-down dinner. So I don't do it. Instead, I play to my strengths and host a dessert party. That I can do.
First rule of thumb when having people over to eat: don't give your guests food poisoning. That sounds funny but I bring it up only to emphasize the importance of having a clean kitchen and following proper food safety guidelines. The last thing you want someone to do is walk away from your party feeling sick from more than just overindulging. If you invited them, one would hope you'd like them well enough to keep them healthy. In practical terms this means using fresh ingredients and nothing beyond the expiration date. I've mentioned before about having to bake something because I wanted to use up an ingredient (milk, buttermilk, etc) before it expires. Never use old ingredients! Fortunately I bake so often and so much that ingredients don't last long in my fridge or pantry, as evidenced by my frequent trips to Costco to load up on butter, sugar, eggs and so on.
Second rule, which also plays into the first one, is clean as you go. Not only does it lessen the work later on but you also decrease the risk of any cross contamination and a bigger mess as you bake. Wipe the counters often - the last thing you want when you're busy baking is inadvertently setting a baking pan on a messy sticky counter, having that stick to the underside of your pan which you then put in the oven and next thing you know you're having to scrub both the pan and the oven because of the transference. Save yourself the headache and clean up as soon as something spills.
Third, plan ahead - figure out what you want to make ahead of time, get your ingredient shopping done and make up what you can ahead of time. I have to admit, this time around, I was a little less prepared. I was still busy with work, other holiday parties as an attendee, and with holiday stuff in general. Not to mention I kept changing my mind as to what to make for the party. But I've been baking long enough that I knew generally what ingredients I needed to stock up on and what types of things to make. I don't believe in baking anything before the day of the party because I believe in maximum freshness. I'm not serving my friends day old desserts! But I did make up cookie doughs and put them in the freezer a few days prior so they only have to be baked ahead of time.
One tip that really helps me prepare for the dessert party: on the morning of the party, I set up all my serving dishes where I wanted to have them on my breakfast bar and how I wanted to arrange them. Then I put slips of paper with whatever I was going to make that was going on that particular serving dish. That not only helped me decide exactly what I was going to make but also kept me on track throughout the day on what I had already done and still needed to do. As each thing got made and put in its serving dish, I threw the slip of paper away and kept checking to see what was left to do. It worked beautifully to keep me on track.
This is the "before" picture. The "after" picture - to be continued....
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