When you work in the medical field, working holidays is expected… so I think whenever I get a holiday off- no matter how big or small I feel the need to make it a big deal, it’s like I’m really getting away with something, so a celebration is necessary! Plus when I was in school, it was very difficult to pause studying for celebrations, so now I’m taking full advantage! Holidays or even just a plain weeknight are fun to indulge with friends & family! Unfortunately the night was washed out by extremely bad thunderstorms– so our trick-or-treaters & guests were minimal, but we still had plenty of snacks & power to watch the Appalachian State football game! -success!
I tried my hand at my first “dessert charcuterie board” and I had a lot of fun designing the layout & gathering all of the right supplies… I was surprised by how much I “needed” to buy and how many leftovers there were… the board pictured could have easily been enough for 10-12 people compared to our 6… the board is approximately 20 inches in diameter, so this was a lot of SWEETS!
To structure the board appropriately, I made sure to balance my big ticket items, aka- the pumpkin filled with dip & the sugar cookies, by laying them down first and on opposite sides, I also added the bowl of cracker jacks to balance heights… I like the tossed on the plate look vs. the perfectly laid out look, so I made sure to not have any white space & fill it in with the candies & gummies… If you look closely, you can see that I tried to have sweet & salty opposite of each other, as well as a symmetrical blend of colors, it probably took 30 minutes to assemble, but it’s not as simple as it looks
Pumpkin dip is also an especially delish treat! The light whipped spread is good with anything dipped in it, and the perfect treat all of Fall.
Pumpkin Dip Recipe
- 1 small pumpkin
- 1 can of pumpkin, 15 oz
- 1 box of vanilla pudding, 5 oz
- 1 container of cool whip, 16 oz
- Pumpkin Pie Spice, 1/2 Tbsp
- Cinnamon, 1/2 Tbsp
- Mix together: canned pumpkin, vanilla pudding powder, cool whip & spices, Let chill for at least 2 hours
- Carve out pumpkin, fill with dip, sprinkle with cinnamon & Serve
Halloween Dessert Board Shopping List:
- Scooby Snack Graham Crackers
- Peach Rings
- Extra Large Cheez-Its
- Halloween Sugar cookies
- Halloween Oreos
- Pistachios
- Peanut M&Ms
- Mini cupcakes
- Halloween Peeps
- Pretzels
- Licorice- red + black
- Gummy worms
- Halloween Reese cups
- Halloween gummies
- Candy corn
- Candy pumpkins
- Chocolate Pocky sticks
- Gummy Vampire teeth
- Cracker Jacks
- & obviously whatever you like/want to snack on!
Wishing you all a Happy Halloween with yours, enjoy!