{plaid party: the sweets}

The sweets for our plaid party were similar to the savory snacks since they were a mix of home-made and store bought items.   I have actually never done a dessert spread with so many different choices before and I realized after the fact that most of the choices had some sort of chocolate in them- not that anyone was complaining, but I think next time it would be better to have more of a mix.  Here is what we served for the sweets at our holiday party:

• assortment of cookies from Trader Joes: Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Sprinkle Rounds & Cranberry Pistachio Cookie Wreaths. 

• mint chocolate pirouette sticks

• home-made chocolate dipped marshmallows, instructions here

• chocolate dipped pretzels, you can see my very first blog post about these here.

• snickerdoodle cupcakes, recipe here

• chocolate bark with bacon, cayenne pepper and toasted slivered almonds- another amazing find like the bratwurst bites that will surely become a party staple. Instructions for this are below.

Originally, I had planned on doing a sweet themed chocolate bark, but we ended up having a little bit of bacon left over from the bacon wrapped dates so we decided to take the bark in a more savory direction.  First we cooked up a few strips of bacon, let them cool and cut them into tiny pieces.  I melted full pound of milk chocolate from Trader Joes and spread it about 1/4 inch thick onto a piece of parchment paper on top of a sheet pan.  Immediately, we topped it with the bacon pieces, some toasted slivered almonds and a healthy sprinkle of cayenne pepper.  After sitting in the fridge overnight, you can break the bark up into pieces.  This would make an awesome Christmas gift paired with a nice bottle whiskey.

 Up next tomorrow- the last plaid party post: the drinks!