Dessert charcuterie boards, also known as a dessert board, are one of the easiest and most impressive ways to serve sweets for parties, holidays, and cozy nights in. This guide shows you how to make a dessert charcuterie board step by step, including what to put on it, and how to arrange everything so it looks party-perfect!
🔍 Quick Look: Dessert Charcuterie Board
⏱️ Prep Time: 15 minutes
🔥 Cook Time: 0 minutes
🕒 Total Time: 15 minutes
🍫 Yield: Serves 2-4 (scale up easily for parties)
🥄 Tools: Serving board or platter, small bowls or ramekins, spoons or spreaders
🎉 Perfect For: Parties, holidays, date night, girls' nights, movie nights, and dessert tables and buffets
⭐ Difficulty: Very Easy (no baking required, just assembly!)
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❤️ Why You'll Love Homemade Dessert Boards
- Perfect for Entertaining and Grazing: Because it's made with shelf-stable and party-friendly sweets, this dessert charcuterie board is portable, refillable, and ideal for serving a crowd at parties, BBQs, and dessert buffets.
- Easy and No-Bake: This dessert board takes about 15 minutes to assemble and requires zero baking, making it a perfect last-minute party dessert or stress-free summer treat.
- Customizable for Any Party or Season: You can mix and match cookies, fruit, candy, chocolate, and dips to fit any theme, holiday, or dietary preference, from kid-friendly boards to elegant dessert spreads.
What to Put on a Dessert Board
- Dessert Dips: Sweet dips and spreads like Nutella, Biscoff spread, honey, etc.
- Cookies and Crackers: Try cookies and sweet crackers like graham crackers, animal crackers, biscotti, wafers, etc.
- Fruit: Another common ingredient to these boards are fruit. You can use your favorite fresh or dried fruit, seriously they all work!
- Candy: Gummy candy, sour candies, mints, chocolate-covered pretzels, marshmallows, peanut brittle, or any other small candies can add a pop of color and texture to the board.
- Bite Size Baked Goods: Brownie bites, mini cupcakes, or any other small or bite size sweets pair perfectly.
- Cheese: While not always included, cheese can be a fun addition to dessert boards. Soft cheeses that pair well with sweet dips are the best, such as a honey goat cheese or a brie cheese.
- Nuts: Nuts add crunch and flavor to the board. Even better if they're candy-coated or covered in chocolate!
There are a few main categories that you'll find on many boards, but no need to limit yourself! You can customize this dessert themed charcuterie however you want.
How to Make
- Place Biggest Items on the Board: Add larger items such as bowls for dessert dips and snack bowls.
- Work From Larger to Smaller: Then work around the bowls with bigger items like cheese, brownies, cookies, and bunches of grapes or fruit. Try to create height and depth by layering items on top of each other or close together.
- Fill in Gaps and Enjoy! Fill in the gaps with smaller items like candy, nuts, and chocolates. You can also add garnishes like edible flowers or fun themed or holiday decorations!
Choosing the Perfect Platter
Choose a platter or board that is large enough to hold all of your dessert items. Consider the occasion or theme, as well as the number of guests you’ll be serving. There are many unique boards and platters available. Etsy has a nice selection as does Amazon. You can even use a cookie sheet with parchment paper on top!
Tips and Tricks
- Work Larger to Smaller: I've found that adding larger items to the board first, medium items, then small items, you can more easily move things around and get a visual idea of how the board will look before adding all the smaller candies and treats.
- Add Salty and Savory to Balance the Sweet: Consider incorporating some salty or savory snacks, like popcorn, pretzels, or peanut butter, to balance out the sweetness of the board.
- Refill: I've found its better to have a variety of stuff on the board and refill as people eat, rather than put everything out at once.
- Add Cold Items Right Before Serving: For anything that needs to be refrigerated, such as dessert dips, you can just add the bowls to the serving platter when prepping, and then fill with the dip right before serving.
Dessert Charcuterie FAQ
You can go to any grocery store for the ingredients, but Trader Joe's always has fun and unique treats for dessert boards, as does Aldi and Whole Foods.
If you're looking for a specific colored treats, such as pastels for wedding, Just Candy and Dylan's Candy Bar are great, as is Amazon.
It depends how big you make it! Typically a 12 inch round board will be good for about 2-4 people. But, it really depends on what is on the board, what else it is being served with (for example, is it the only dessert or is it part of a larger spread), and who is eating (children, adults, etc.).
Yes, you can prep a dessert board a few hours in advance. Arrange all shelf-stable items like cookies, candy, and chocolate ahead of time, then cover the board tightly with plastic wrap. Add fresh fruit, crunchy snacks, and refrigerated dips right before serving!
Most sweet charcuterie boards can safely sit out for about 2 hours at room temperature. If your board includes dairy-based dips or whipped toppings, add right before serving and limit sit-out time to 1 hour. Or, place the board over ice packs to keep cold items chilled longer.
Fun Dessert Board Ideas
Here are some of the most common themed sweet charcuterie boards:
- S'mores board: S’mores boards are a common and delicious dessert board for roasting marshmallows by a fit pit. All you need is marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers, and anything else you think would go well on a S'more!
- Hot chocolate board: Another very common variation on the sweet charcuterie boards are hot chocolate and all the fixings! Add marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles, caramel, and chocolate stirrers.
- Fruit charcuterie board: another common sweet charcuterie board is the fruit charcuterie. Just use all your favorite fruit!
Recipes for a Dessert Charcuterie Board
Want to add a more homemade touch to your dessert board? These recipes are a perfect addition!
🥣 Dip Recipes
🍪 Small Bites
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Dessert Charcuterie Board
Equipment
- serving board or platter
- Small Bowls
INGREDIENTS
- Dessert Dips such as Oreo Dip, Ganache, or Caramel
- Cookies and Crackers such as pirouette or wafer cookies or graham crackers, etc.
- Fruit such as strawberries, or grapes, etc.
- Candy such as gummy candies, marshmallows, peanut brittle, jelly beans, chocolate covered pretzels, etc.
- Chocolate such as milk chocolate dark chocolate, truffles, etc.
- Cheese such as goat cheese, brie, etc.
- Bite Size Sweets such as macarons, brownie bites, etc.
Instructions
- Place the biggest items such as your bowls of dip on the board. No need to fill with dips at this time, just move the bowls around for placement ideas.
- Then fill the bowls and starting adding larger items like cheese, brownies, cookies, and fruit. Working from larger items to smaller allows for more easily getting a visual idea of how the board will look.
- Fill in the gaps with smaller items like small candy, nuts, and chocolates. You can also add any garnishes like edible flowers or fun themed or holiday decorations.
- If assembling ahead of time, add any perishable items such as dips and cheese right before serving. Enjoy!
Notes
- Consider incorporating some salty or savory snacks, like popcorn, pretzels, or peanut butter to balance out the sweetness of the board.
- I've found its better to have a variety of stuff on the board and refill as people eat, rather than put everything out at once.
- For anything that needs to be refrigerated such as dessert dips, you can add the bowls to the serving platter and then fill the dip right before serving.
Sophia Assunta says
This is one of my favorite party recipes, I hope you try it for your next party!!