5 Ways to Make Dessert Dazzling

by Jessica on October 18, 2010

The following post is from Jessica of GoodCheapEats and LifeasMOM:

slab apple pie

source: Jessica Fisher @ LifeasMOM

As Fall gets under way, you may be more likely to invite friends in for a dinner party or to cozy up with your sweet ones with a yummy little treat before bedtime. Seasonal produce such as apples and pumpkins are the basis for some fantastic desserts. And surely as the holiday season approaches, visions of sugarplums dance in our heads.

While the traditional pie or cake on a platter is certainly enticing, there are a few things that we can do to make simple desserts a little more dazzling.

1. Serve a sauce.

A simple bundt cake can be dressed up in a homemade or purchased sauce, such as chocolate, berry or caramel. Drizzle some strawberry coulis on the plate and place a slice of angel food cake atop. Or serve chocolate cheesecake with a few stripes of rich chocolate fudge sauce. Homemade Apple Crisp gets even better with a scoop of ice cream and a spoonful of caramel sauce.

2. Whip some cream.

Whipped cream can add a wonderful texture contrast to ice cream, cake, or pie. It’s so easy to make from scratch!

Simply whip 1 cup of heavy whipping cream with 1-2 Tablespoons of sugar until soft peaks form. If you want to be even more dazzling, add 1/2 teaspoon of some kind of flavoring like vanilla or peppermint extract, depending on the flavor of your dessert.

Get creative in pairing flavors you love. Maple Cream goes fantastic with Streusel-Topped Pumpkin Custards.

streusel topped pumpkin custard

source: Jessica Fisher @ GoodCheapEats

3. Make it little.

Individually sized desserts are a pleasure to kids and adults alike. Bake cake batter in mini muffin tins or cupcake papers. Instead of a large pie, make personal sized tarts, like these Almond Custard Tarts or these Single Serving Pies. Serve custard or pudding in little ramekins.

4. Use nice dishes.

Forgo paper plates in exchange for “real” dessert plates and flatware. Sure, there are a few more dishes to wash, but the effort communicates that your guests and your family are special.

5. Eat by candlelight.

Enhance the celebratory mood even more by dimming the lights and lighting a few candles. Mood matters, whether you’re eating with guests or those you share a roof with. Dim lighting also helps us to linger and savor the moments — and the dessert!

Make dessert and special times together a little more dazzling this season.

How do you make dessert feel special?

A gourmand at heart, Jessica Fisher has learned to reconcile a tight budget with her love for great food. As a busy mom of six voracious eaters, she regularly shares healthy, delicious and budget-friendly recipes at GoodCheapEats. She also writes at her parenting blog, LifeasMOM.


  • beebeefox

    As classy as it sounds…total sarcasm…we put them up in the boys’ windows to block out light so they’ll sleep later. :_)

  • http://therommfamily.blogspot.com/ keely aka LKP

    for over a decade i’ve always had my throws on a towel rod in the living room. i’ve selected my favorite/most chic styled towel rod in the bathroom section at the store. come home & mounted on the wall where would best go in that current room’s layout. then hang my fave throw of the moment. works out well cause it’s always within reach, plus i’m never worried that it’s dropped on the floor, or in the way. very convenient! ;) enjoy!

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  • http://twitter.com/AllieZirkle Allison Zirkle

    I <3 individual sized desserts. It tastes better that way :)

    • Anonymous

      LOL! It’s true, isn’t it?!

  • Juliana

    I did not know either!

  • http://jugglingmotherhood.com/ Meeks

    I feel like I was just let in on a BIG secret! Thanks! Can’t wait to pass this on to others!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2LZQ533B7X3PDWOXHFBVJIGICE jimmiehomeschoolmom

    Okay, I feel like a dork. I need a diagram. WHERE is middle click? My mouse had a left and a right with a wheel in the middle. There’s no middle button. Is my mouse defective?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2LZQ533B7X3PDWOXHFBVJIGICE jimmiehomeschoolmom

    Okay, I feel like a dork. I need a diagram. WHERE is middle click? My mouse had a left and a right with a wheel in the middle. There’s no middle button. Is my mouse defective?

  • http://brite-talk.com Andrea DeBell – britetalk

    Hi Prerna! What a great idea. I usually use my daily planner to get my activities organized but this seems more efficient. When I got married, I had a big wedding binder with dividers and everything organized by category to keep it all in order. This reminder me of that. I still have my wedding binder. I’ll start one for Christmas and I can update the information every year.
    Thanks for this great tip. Loving blessings!

    • http://www.themomwrites.com Prerna

      Hi Andrea! Glad you liked the idea and hope you’ll use it to make your Christmas planning easy and peaceful. Happy Holidays!

  • http://twitter.com/txblond Tiffany @ NOH

    I love the idea about remembering the givers. This is a great list! Thanks for sharing.

  • Susan

    When I was little my mom would punch wholes in cards around the boarders and then let me sew with yarn around the holes – it was definitely a fun project on a cold winter day.

  • Gypsy Amykate

    We have always used the card fronts for gift tags on our gifts the following Christmas.
    Like the last commenter, we get fewer and fewer cards but many photo cards. My dear friend shared a wonderful idea to save the photo cards on which families spend much time and money {sometimes blood and tears, too.}The last 3 years, we have placed the photos in a small, portable album. We travel all the time, but we can easily take the album with us and my kids choose different friends or family members to pray for during our family time. It also helps familiarize them with loved ones we may not see in person that often. We do pitch older photos when we receive an updated one. But our album is precious to us.

  • http://www.teawithdee.blogspot.com Deanna Piercy

    I cut off the fronts of cards and then use them as thank you notes. You can write on the back just like a postcard and then mail them sans envelope with postcard rates. Saves money and less waste.

    • Anonymous

      I love this idea Deanna — thanks so much for sharing!

  • Erin

    We punch a hole in the upper left corner on each card, then hang it on the tree. Photo cards usually go up on my daughter’s bulletin board. My daughter loves the ones that are on the tree, pulls them down to read them or look at the sparkliest ones. :) Plus, it fills up the large trees my husband always loves to buy!

  • Lisachalfant

    We do something similar to #5. We get mostly photo cards from families. I have a scrapbook just for the cards we receive. I keep the letters and the photos over the years. It’s fun to look back and see how everyone has changed.

  • Erin

    We use them for thank you notes too.

    We also wrap Christmas presents with white butcher paper or the blank side of paper bags.
    The kids then decorate the plain paper with images that I had saved from last year’s Christmas cards.
    Use glue sticks or Elmers glue applied with a watercolor paint brush.
    Also, cutting images out with craft scissors gives the images a neat border and makes the wrapping paper even more “fancy.”

  • Catherine

    My kids enjoy using a glue stick on the Christmas card pictures and then sprinkling salt on them to make sparkly “snow.” An easy kids’ craft.

  • Catherine

    My kids enjoy using a glue stick on the Christmas card pictures and then sprinkling salt on them to make sparkly “snow.” An easy kids’ craft.

  • http://twitter.com/PensieveRobin Robin @ Pensieve

    How much do I love this–I got ideas from both YOU and your readers! A double treat (and suggestions I plan to USE!).

    Thanks!!! :)

  • Jennifer

    We have a Christmas Memories scrapbook where I keep the photo cards (on the scrapbook pages) and letters (in a pocket page). It is SO MUCH FUN to go through each year and see how the families have grown over the years. If you give this idea a try, don’t forget to include your own Christmas photo card in the book. Your own kids will get a kick out of seeing themselves when they were smaller.

    One funny thing with our book: we moved from FL to VA when my boys were 2 and 5 (4 years ago). There are several families we still receive cards from each year. Having not seen most of them in 4 years, the boys don’t recognize all of them any more, but if I turn back to the photos of their friends as they were 4 years ago, they remember them and they get a kick out of seeing how much their buddies have grown and changed!

  • Olivia

    Katie, thanks as always for you wonderful ideas! I do want to comment on the wreath, however. To make it requires buying a styrofoam circle as a base…styrofoam! In that case, it’s probably greener to do something else. And I’m not so crafty, but I’m willing to challenge myself a little to reuse the loads of things we generate during the holidays :)

  • http://simpleorganic.net Nicole

    I love the idea of praying over the cards! I think we’ll start doing that at dinner! xo

  • Aj

    i glue them shut, hole punch them around the edges and use them as lacing cards for my preschooler…

  • Jenny V

    This year I learned how to make a little gift box out of the card using the front for the top piece and the back for the bottom piece. Perfect for little gifts. Also if you have Christmas village scenes on the cards and make the boxes, it makes a cute little village to go on a windowsill or shelf.

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  • lacyfinn

    The star is a great idea for Epiphany, which is coming up! thanks!

  • Anonymous

    I’m not happy with the new news feed/timeline and the algorithm that chooses “important” posts, so I created a list and put everyone on it, then went through and made sure to select “all updates” for everyone on the list, while deselecting “games” and “comments and likes”. Reading the list looks pretty much like the way the old news feed used to, and I don’t have to look at the ticker. I just wish Facebook would believe me when I want to see ALL updates and will just show them all, not most. I know I’m missing some because I can see them all if I go to a friend’s profile page, which will probably change when all the profile pages change to timelines.

  • http://twitter.com/D_L_Schillinger Donna Schillinger

    Also cut out images on cards to use in holiday scrapbooking.

  • Anonymous

    Ooh, this works in Firefox too — this will
    help a ton on my laptop!

  • Anonymous

    Ooh, this works in Firefox too — this will
    help a ton on my laptop!

  • http://www.themomwrites.com Prerna

    Glad to know you do that! It always helps to be prepared for last-minute guests!

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