An Elephant of a Dessert Bar!
After planning my wedding, I developed an obsessive fascination with event planning. To be honest, I’ve always loved coordinating gatherings where I can get people together who like to eat delicious food and enjoy drinks while spending time together.
When I was asked to help plan a friend’s baby shower, I was super excited for the opportunity to plan another event. I was even more excited to put together a dessert bar! Who doesn’t want a mini Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (circa 1971) at their party?!!
Dessert bars have become so popular recently and the options of delightful sweets are endless!
The soon-to-be mommy told me she wanted an elephant-themed baby shower with the colors blue and grey. I decided to add white in order to break up the masculine colors.
I knew for sure that we had to have cupcakes and that evolved into also wanting a cake as the focal point of the dessert bar so I researched cakes with elephants on them and came across the most adorable elephant holding balloons in his tiny little trunk.
I enlisted the help of Iris, creator of Cakes By Cerella (check out my other post, Iris Cerella x Ninja Spiki Cakes, to see more of her amazing work) to make the one-tier, dulce de leche cake which came out beautifully.
I ordered a mix of regular-sized cupcakes, mini cupcakes, and vegan cupcakes from Sweet! by Holly in order to accommodate the 60-70 guests. To dress up the cupcakes a bit more, I made elephant cupcake toppers with cream-colored card stock and two different shades of blue card stock.
The cupcake flavors were: Salted Caramel, PB&J, Banana Split, S’mores, Heath Bar, Nutella, Creme Brûlée, Key Lime, and Cookies n’ Cream. YUM!
I really wanted to go all out on this dessert bar so I knew we needed to add macarons and luckily the mommy-to-be loves macarons! I ordered the macarons from Le Macaron French Pastries in the flavors Black Currant and Coconut Creme in order to stay with the blue and white theme. The jam used in the Black Currant was delicious and the Coconut Creme were quickly devoured.
To fill up the gorgeous glass apothecary jars, I knew that popcorn would look amazing in them so I ordered two large bags from Ms. Bee’s Gourmet Popcorn & Candy Shoppe. We went with Parmesan Garlic (one of my favorites) and Blueberry flavored popcorn. Everyone came back multiple times to scoop more and more into their goodie bags.
The dessert bar also had Cookies n’ Cream Hershey’s Kisses along with rock candy, lollipops, gum balls, chocolate drops, and more that were ordered online from Amazon and Party City.
I couldn’t be happier with how the entire dessert bar turned out and it was definitely a huge hit with all the guests! I can’t wait to put together another one!
Event Planner: Larnna Thompson (please contact me at lphokakul@gmail.com if you’re in need of an event planner)
Candy Jars, Apothecary Jars, Grey Vintage Cake Stands: Home Goods located in Winter Garden, Florida
White Picture Frame, Card Stock for Signs/Cupcake Toppers, Clear Goodie Bags with Ties: Michaels
Cake: Cakes by Cerella (contact Iris at cakesbycerella@gmail.com for custom cakes and check out her work — @cakesbycerella on Pinterest and @icerella on Instagram)
Cupcakes, Large White Metal Cake Stand, and Silver Toss Cake Stand: Sweet! by Holly located in Orlando, Florida
Macarons: Le Macaron French Pastries located in Winter Park, Florida
Popcorn: Ms. Bee’s Gourmet Popcorn & Candy Shoppe located in Winter Garden, Florida
Assorted Candy and Chocolate: Amazon, Party City, Target