Easy Entertaining with Beautiful Plates and Semi-Homemade Christmas Desserts

If you’ve followed me for awhile now, you know that I am all about beautiful, but incredibly easy entertaining.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to put some time into creating beautiful things, but I want them to be easy to do.  Easy table settings, easy food, easy, easy, easy! 😉  The best part is, so many things look complicated, but once you see what’s behind it, you realize it was actually VERY easy.  Christmas desserts are no exception to this rule!  One of the best secrets for presenting a beautiful dessert…the plates you serve it on!  I can spend hours in the tableware section at HomeGoods.  They carry such a great mix of plates and holiday serve ware. It is my go-to for decking out my holiday table.  I love to mix and match plaids and polka dots for a super cute look.

When it comes to Christmas Eve, we are going out for dinner.  I have a FAVORITE restaurant and we are going for an early dinner so that I don’t have to stress and can enjoy the evening.  I will cook on Christmas, when things are feeling a bit more relaxed and there is time to spend in the kitchen without the craziness that seems to ensue on Christmas Eve.  However, I want there to be a little bit of homemade on Christmas Eve, so we are saving dessert for at home.  This allows me to prepare a wide array of Christmas desserts over the course of a few days and still set a pretty party, but with much less work.  If cooking at all overwhelms you, here are a few of my favorite store-bought desserts, dressed up with the perfect amount of semi-homemade goodness to make them look and taste like a million bucks without spending hours in the kitchen.

christmas desserts

I picked all of these up at my local Trader Joes, but the grocery store has many delicious options to choose from.

Dress up an apple pie or rustic apple tart with homemade caramel sauce.  Make the sauce a week ahead and just pull it out of the fridge the day of.

christmas desserts

I picked a cranberry cake for color and to add something a little tart to the otherwise overly sweet dessert options.  Sift a bit of powdered sugar over the top to make it look elegant, and if you want, add some orange zest.  Orange pairs so nicely with cranberry it will taste delicious and look like you spent time slaving over a hot stove.

christmas desserts

Finally the sticky toffee pudding.  This stuff is TO DIE FOR good.  And SO sweet.  It doesn’t get any easier than heating it in the microwave for 90 seconds.  Done!  To jazz this up a bit I whipped up some homemade whipped cream to top it off.  I don’t know what it is about homemade whipped cream…it takes only minutes to make and is just heavy cream and powdered sugar, but people get all impressed when it’s homemade.  They won’t even ask you if you made the cake. 😉

christmas desserts

I hope you are feeling confident to volunteer to host a gathering for Christmas desserts or take something to your next party.  It really doesn’t have to be difficult or time intensive to come up with something beautiful.  A little handmade touch goes a long way.

It always helps to serve desserts on fun plates, so here are some of my favorites on the market right now.  Click on any affiliate image for more information:

How cute are those Nutcracker plates? Dying! There are three other adorable designs in that set too. Love them all!!

Happy entertaining!

Tammy

Tammy

Creative Director at Pink Peppermint Design
Tammy Mitchell is the founder and creative director of lifestyle blog pinkpeppermintdesign.com. Along with being a homeschooling mom of two kiddos, she is also an in-demand prop and event stylist, photographer, interior and graphic designer. On Pink Peppermint Design, she shares creative DIY projects, easy entertaining and gift ideas, inspiring interiors and events. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and two children.

Christmas desserts

5 thoughts on “Easy Entertaining with Beautiful Plates and Semi-Homemade Christmas Desserts”

  1. Great idea. I think we all feel like we need to make everything from scratch. We end up putting to much pressure on ourselves and stressing out when we could get something pre-made and jazzing it up. Wish I had thought of this. (As I write this I am battling through a cake that keeps falling apart as I ice it. Uggg…)

    Reply
  2. Great Christmas Desserts, they look delicious. Thanks so much for sharing your awesome recipes with us at Full Plate Thursday! Hope you are having a wonderful week and hope to see you soon!
    Miz Helen

    Reply

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