Wedding Dessert Buffet Recipes

July 27, 2011

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Sorbet Bombe

Con Poulos
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Chill out before your big day by making these delightful sorbet bombes. All you need is a mixer to soften the sorbet and a metal container or four (we used cake molds and a vase to get these shapes). Once the sorbet is smooth in consistency, spoon it into the containers (for visual flair, layer different flavors), and freeze overnight. At your wedding, just slice and serve! Lemon, peach, coconut, and pink-grapefruit sorbets are showcased in our versions, but you could easily substitute ice cream.

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Cherry Blossom-Themed Desserts

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A coconut cake, mint candies, and rose melting moments cookies create a gorgeous pink color scheme for this cherry blossom-inspired dessert buffet.

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Frozen Strawberry Souffles

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Perfect for a wedding with a color palette of pink or red, these souffles can be served at each table setting after dinner, or to make an even bigger statement, combine them on a dessert buffet with store-bought colorful pink and red candies, cakes, and cookies.

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Tropical Bombe

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Shapely bombes, consisting of sorbets layered in molds and frozen, lend cool sophistication to a sweets table and are wonderful with cake. On the left, a tropical bombe made with lemon, coconut, and passion fruit.

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Cold Cherry Soup

Maura McEvoy
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Cold cherry soup is a wonderful dessert for guests to sip before or after the cake. Rubber-stamped napkins emphasize the soup's flavor and the felicitous tone of the entire day.

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Mini Chocolate-Covered Wedding Cakes

Con Poulos
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Fancy: Yes. Fussy: Not in the least. To make these mini chocolate-covered desserts, we poured a glaze over each cake and piped on lines -- and, in the case of the cake in the middle, circles -- of melted white chocolate. (Perch the cakes on a wire rack so excess glaze doesn't pool.) Then we gently dragged a toothpick through the lines to create the designs.

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Mini Doughnuts

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End your wedding celebration with a few oh's (as in diminutive doughnuts) and ah's (as in the delighted response they're sure to evoke) by passing out these traditional breakfast treats. Serve with a cup of coffee (as shown here) or stack them on a dessert buffet for guests to enjoy.

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Champagne Gelee with Fresh Currants

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This sophisticated and unique dessert idea is easy to make and beautiful to look at. Set it out on a buffet with like-colored desserts and you'll have a festive and themed after-dinner surprise for guests.

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Lemon-Champagne Bombe

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This bombe features a mound of lemon and Champagne sorbets. It makes the perfect addition to a wedding cake, or it can be served on its own for a unique spin on a wedding dessert.

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Lemon Pavlovas

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To create these whimsical pavlovas, clouds of meringue, perfumed with vanilla, are baked until crispy outside and marshmallow-soft within; each is topped with a pool of lemon curd and candied lemon slices. The desserts are presented on curvaceous ceramic saucers that echo the meringues' peaks and billows.

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Hazelnut Cheesecake Squares

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These cheesecake squares blend three types of cheeses together with a hazelnut cookie crust for the ultimate in cheesecake squares. Arrange them with assorted yellow candies and sweets on Plexiglas trays, in addition to the wedding cake or in lieu of.

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Miniature Candied Apples

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The diminutive scale of Lady apples transforms a fall favorite into a dainty nibble. Make guests feel like a kid again by displaying them on trays on a dessert buffet or serving them on passed trays after dinner.

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Meyer Lemon and Cream Cheese Pound Cake

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Iced poppy-seed tea cakes are extra moist thanks to cream cheese in the batter. They make a great addition to a dessert buffet, or you can package them and give them to guests at the end of the night as wedding favors.

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Blancmange

Jim Franco
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For a delicious contrast, serve these puddings alongside chewy strips of candied lemon peel, available at gourmet shops and specialty candy stores.

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Dessert-Wine Gelees with Citrus Fruit

Joseph De Leo
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These sangria-inspired gelees, infused with sweet wines and subtly undercut with citrus flavors, are for sophisticated palates.

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Marshmallow Tower

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Homemade marshmallows become even more special when dressed in a pastel version of your palette. When they're ready, stack 'em three high, spear with a cute, beaded toothpick (which comes in almost every imaginable color), and watch your guests gobble them up.

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Beignets

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If you've ever been a guest at a wedding where a tired-looking cake lands with a thud on your plate toward the end of the night, you'll appreciate this grown-up twist on milk and cookies. Plush, pillowy beignets -- a New Orleans treat whose name is from the French word for "fritter" -- are spiced with nutmeg and dusted with sugar, and they taste really good with malted milkshakes.

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Marzipan Cherries

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We covered dried sour cherries in marzipan and luster dust, then added faux leaves on top for a touch of gold. For the stems and leaves of these cherries, we dismantled gold plastic foliage.

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Roulade in Contrasting Flavors

Dana Gallagher
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Offer slices of roulade in contrasting flavors as an alternative to wedding cake. Yellow sponge cake is rolled with pistachio mousse, iced with whipped cream, and covered in white-chocolate bark. The Chocolate-Chestnut Roulade is filled and iced with a chestnut puree mixture and coated with dark-chocolate bark.

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Miniature Angel Food Cakes

Dana Gallagher
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Though it's not often served at weddings, angel food cake never disappoints. Guests will be delighted by these individual versions of the heavenly confection; each one is glazed and then topped with a single sugared flower (an edible rose, viola, or primrose), making them elegant enough to present either in lieu of a classic wedding cake or as part of a dessert buffet. Cake stands dusted with pale-pink sanding sugar give them the stature they deserve.

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Eggs in Nests Dessert

Jim Franco
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Like a tiny blizzard, spun sugar swirls around an eggshell filled with white-chocolate ice cream. This sweet dessert can be served preceding the cake or in place of it.

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"Potted" Chocolate Pudding

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Celebrate the season of buds and new beginnings with pretty seedlings for guests to admire -- and savor. Composed of flowering herbs nestled in chocolaty "soil"-covered pudding, the decadent desserts are a sweet, witty symbol of your fresh start.

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Floating Islands in Rose Syrup

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The light meringues and concentrated flavors of our floating islands in rose syrup require a wine with ample acidity yet enough sweetness to hold its own. Croft's Pink Port ($19), the venerable producer's first ever, fits the bill and then some. The dessert sipper has tickly sweet notes of raspberries, sour cherries, and oranges; a great, balancing acidity; and subtle notes of baking spices that accentuate the nutmeg sprinkled on the meringues.

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Layered Gelee

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Poured into simple, modern glasses, these graphic layers of flavored gelee (rose water, ginger, lychee, and rose Champagne) elevate the childhood staple to wedding-worthy haute cuisine. Top them with a single cherry blossom.

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Sauternes Sabayon

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Rich yet airy, this smooth dessert gets its lift from the whipped cream and can be incorporated on a dessert table with fluffy sweets such as macaroons and pavlovas.

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Mini Angel Food Cakes

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Little in the pastry world is more charming than a perfectly constructed individual dessert, especially when it's drenched in icing and topped with a spun-sugar crown.

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Strawberry Desserts

Mini berry desserts make for enticing accompaniments. Vacherins (meringues topped with rose-water whipped cream and a slice of strawberry), panna cotta capped with strawberry gelatin, and strawberries and creme fraiche tarts all pay homage to the petite fruit.

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Luster-Dusted Meringues

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One would think that meringues can't be improved upon, but dip them in a mix of luster dust and orange extract, and you'll think differently.

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Miniature White Cakes

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Who says plain cake has to be, well, plain? Cut pieces from a sheet cake, frost them using a few simple techniques, and watch as your guests -- and their sugar cravings -- delight in their delicious differences.

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Old-Fashioned Yeast Doughnut Holes

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Late-night snacks can feel as tired as the wedding guests who devour them. These doughnut holes, however, are a wake-up call in the form of a sugar rush. Simply ask your caterer to whip up a big batch in a variety of sugar-coated hues, and serve them to your (grateful) guests in metallic-gold paper cones.

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Sparkly Champagne Gelatin

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For grown-ups only, our Champagne gelatin, paired with fresh whipped cream, will delight the young at heart and sophisticated of palate. (Use rose Champagne for a pink hue.)

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