Twelve sweet things, standing
The Dessert Table
For weddings and big receptions: a table of small sweet things instead of a plated dessert, built to survive three hours and look untouched for the first twenty minutes.
Preparation
What happens when
- Two days aheadPastry made and frozen raw, chocolate work tempered and stored cool.
- The day beforeTarts baked, creams set, glasses filled.
- The dayTable built thirty minutes before it opens, with replacement trays cold in the kitchen.
Service
How to serve it
Build it in the kitchen and carry it out complete. Replace whole trays rather than topping up, and take it away after ninety minutes so it never looks picked over.
At home
A dessert table for thirty
Three home made things and two bought well is the right ratio. Pick things that improve or hold.
- Make one large fruit tart with a proper sweet pastry base, baked blind, filled with crème pâtissière and fruit on the day.
- Make a chocolate tart the day before: 300 g dark chocolate, 300 ml cream, 60 g butter, set in a baked case and served at room temperature.
- Set 30 small glasses of a vanilla cream or panna cotta the night before and keep them cold until twenty minutes before service.
- Add a big bowl of perfect fruit, a plate of madeleines baked that afternoon and a dish of chocolates with the coffee.
Editor’s tip: Cut tarts into small pieces in the kitchen. Guests take a slice they would never cut themselves, and the table looks generous instead of destroyed.
Plan it
Quantities and timing
How much to buy
Quantity Calculator
Guest count, service style and menu shape turned into a shopping list in kilos, litres and pieces.
OpenDoes this menu work?
Menu Composer
Build a menu course by course and see the balance: weight, technique, temperature, colour, repetition, oven conflicts and a wine suggestion for each course..
OpenWhat happens at 19:40
Service Timeline
A backwards plan from the minute your first course leaves the kitchen: crew arrival, prep, table setting, briefing, doors, courses, speeches, coffee and strike..
OpenFormats
Where this menu belongs
Format
One hundred guests, one kitchen tentWedding Banquet
Sixty to two hundred seated, a field kitchen, a timetable nobody may move and a cake that has to survive the afternoon.
Read on
Format
Two hours, standing, forty bitesCocktail Reception
Two hours, no chairs, eight to twelve bites a guest and a bar that never has a queue.
Read on
Format
A kitchen with no addressDesert Camp Dinner
Dinner forty minutes from the nearest kitchen, with generators, cold rooms and a fire.
Read onMarkets
Where it eats best
Market
Villas, olive trees and a food culture that needs no helpTuscany
Tuscany gives you the best produce to price ratio in Europe, villas built for thirty at one table and a trade that understands weddings better than anywhere on this list..
Read on
Market
Nine months of outdoor dinners and a staff pool that speaks four languagesMarbella
The Costa del Sol has the longest outdoor dining season in Europe, villas built for entertaining and prices a third below the French coast.
Read on
Market
Anything is available, at a price, with paperworkDubai
Dubai’s private dining season runs when Europe’s stops.
Read on