Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (2024)


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Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat

March 26, 2024 at 3:29 pm · Filed under , Desserts, Easter, The Nibble, Tip Of The Day

Here’s a crowd pleaser of an idea for Easter dinner: an Easter candy “charcuterie board” (platter) at the end of the meal, instead of petit fours*.

Candies and cookies take the place of the meats on an actual charcuterie board†.

We serve ours at the end of the meal, after dessert, with coffee.

You can either create a platter that’s kid-friendly, or a “gourmet” version for the sophisticated foodie crowd, with artisan Easter candies.

You can substitute Easter cookies instead, or combine cookies and candy.

If you’re creating an elegant board for connoisseurs, head to your favorite chocolatiers and augment with petite cookies like mini macarons.

And you can apply the same principles to a Christmas candy or Valentine candy charcuterie board. It’s an all-celebration concept.

And because it’s arranged in advance, you can hide the board from your guests and bring it out as an after-dinner surprise.

Thanks to the International Charcuterie Association for inspiring this article.


CREATE YOUR CANDY CHARCUTERIE BOARD


STEP 1: Select a tray, platter, or cheese board as the base. It doesn’t have to be large; after eating dinner, people’s capacity for candy will be smaller. Trays with a rim are better to contain the candies after people start to dig in.

Provide small paper or plastic cups (muffin/cupcake liners work) and serving spoons for people can help themselves.


STEP 2: Pick Your Treats

Focus on the color palette (as in the photos) to make your board pop.

Check out candies in Easter colors or pastels, or gold or color-foil-wrapped:

  • Candy sticks
  • Chocolate–coated mini pretzels
  • Gum drops
  • Jelly beans
  • M&Ms
  • Marshmallows or Peeps
  • Mini chocolate bunnies (check out the foiled wrapped bunnies from Lindt, photo #4)
  • Mini chocolate/malted eggs
  • Mini cookies
  • Mini PB cups or Reese’s mini PB eggs
  • Sour lemon drops or other sour candy
  • Anything else that looks good

  • Also look for

  • Candy grass (photo #3) to decorate the board and roll into nests to hold jelly beans


  • *FOOD 101: MIGNARDISES (PETIT-FOURS) & FRIANDISES

    These are different types of sweets served at the end of a meal with coffee. Liqueurs can also be served.

    Mignardises (min-yar-DEEZ), from the French for “preciousness,” belong to the group of after-dinner cookies called petit-fours (French for “small baked pastries”).

    Petit-fours (pronounced petty-foor) are tiny cakes or other tiny baked goods, like mini macaroons and other mini cookies. The words are French for “small ovens” but mean “small baked pastries.”

    There are many varieties of petit-four; the most familiar in the U.S. is a one-inch-square layered sponge cake, filled with butter cream and iced in a variety of colored fondants, often with tiny roses or other piped embellishments (photo #6). A truly American addition to a petit-fours plate would be mini cupcakes.

    In France, this style is not common; and there are confections that can be included on a petit-fours plate. See Friandises, below. that are not baked at all.

    There are two styles of petit-fours: glacée (iced) and sec (dry).

  • Petit-fours glacées or frais (fresh) include filled and/or iced petit-fours, miniature babas, miniature éclairs, tiny iced cakes and tartlets.
  • Petit-fours secs (i.e., they don’t have to be eaten fresh like cake) include small cookies, macaroons, madeleines, meringues, palmiers and tuiles.


    Friandises (free-yon-DEEZ), from the French for “delicate,” are another interchangeable term.

    While some people simply include them under the banner of petit-fours, friandises are actually non-baked confections such as glazed or chocolate-dipped fruit, marzipan, small truffles and other chocolates (e.g. bonbons), marzipan, and nut clusters.



    MORE EASTER TREATS

    > The history of Easter candy and the Easter basket.

    > The history of Easter eggs.

    > The history of the Easter ham.


    ________________

    †Charcuterie, a popular first course or board to serve with cocktails, can include ballotines, confit, galantines, pâtés, sausages, terrines, primarily made from pork. Here’s more about them.




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  • Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (2)
    [1] It’s easy to put together an Easter “charcuterie” board, substituting candy for charcuterie (photo © Taste Of Home | TMB Studio).

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (3)
    [2] A mixture of cookies and candy (photo © Lil Luna—here’s how she made it).

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (4)
    [3] Candy grass can hold jelly beans or other candy, then eaten (photo © The Typical Mom.

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (5)
    [4] Gold foil-wrapped mini bunnies add glimmer to the board (photo © Lindt USA).

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (6)
    [5] A mix of candy and cookies, with an army of chicken and bunny Peeps (photo © Galloway Grazes | Instagram).

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (7)
    [6] Easter petit-fours (photo © Mackenzie Ltd.).

    Easter Candy Charcuterie Board For An After-Dinner Treat (8)
    [7] Modern mignardises: We have always loved these speckled eggs with candy exteriors and silken ganache insides from artisan chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt | Chocopologie (photo © Williams Sonoma).

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