The kitchen fills up right after Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone wants coffee at the same moment, someone can’t find the pie server, and whoever cooked is stuck by the sink trying to start the dishes.
A dessert bar fixes most of that, and it doesn’t need to be fancy. Put pie, coffee and plates on a table in another room, set them out in a sensible order, and people serve themselves. That’s really the whole idea. The rest of this post is the details: where to put it, what order things go in, and how much pie to buy.
Where it goes
Anywhere that isn’t the kitchen. A sideboard or buffet in the dining room is ideal because it’s already the right height and close to where people are sitting. A console table in the living room works too.
If you don’t have either, use a folding card table and throw a long tablecloth over it. With the legs covered, nobody will know it came out of the closet an hour ago. Leave room to walk up to it from the front, and if you can, from one side as well.
You need roughly 4 to 6 feet of table for pie, toppings and coffee. Less than that and it gets crowded; you can make up some space with a tiered stand (more on that below).
Put things in the order people use them
This is the part that makes the biggest difference. Lay the table out left to right in the order someone actually needs things:
- Plates, forks and napkins
- Pies, each with its own server
- Toppings
- Coffee and mugs at the far end
Coffee goes last because people stand around it and talk. If it’s at the start of the table, they stand around it and block the pie.
A small handwritten card that says “plates here” at the start of the table sounds a little much, but it saves you from answering the same question fifteen times.
The pie end
Put the pies on the flattest, steadiest part of the table. I wouldn’t pre-slice them. Whole pies look generous, and people like cutting the size they want.
The thing almost everyone forgets is servers (on Amazon): one per pie. If two pies share a server, someone ends up using a dinner knife and the pumpkin pie gets apple crumbs in it. Extra pie servers are cheap and you’ll use them every year.
Whipped cream should sit on the table too, in a bowl set inside a bigger bowl of ice. Ice cream stays in the freezer until you’re ready for dessert, then comes out in its carton with a scoop.
How much pie: plan on one 9-inch pie for every 6 to 8 people, and have at least two kinds. Leftover pie is fine. Running out is the one thing that actually goes wrong.
The coffee end
A thermal carafe is better than leaving the coffee maker on. Brew a full pot before dinner, pour it into the carafe and it stays hot for hours with nothing plugged in. If you have two, make one of them decaf, because a lot of people won’t drink regular coffee at 8 p.m.
Set mugs, sugar, cream and spoons right next to it. If your family drinks more tea or cider than coffee, swap those in. A hot drink at the end of the table is the point, not coffee specifically.
Toppings
This is the cheap, fun part. A row of small bowls (on Amazon) or jars from your baking cabinet: chopped pecans, caramel sauce, cinnamon, chocolate shavings, crushed gingersnaps, mini marshmallows. Label anything that isn’t obvious.
It’s also an easy way to handle dietary needs without making a speech. Put a bowl of coconut whipped cream next to the regular one and let people pick.
Something for the kids
Kids can’t reach a sideboard and shouldn’t be near the hot coffee anyway. Set them up separately at their height: the coffee table or a low side table, with a carafe of warm (not hot) cocoa, small cups and marshmallows. They get their own thing to look forward to, and the adult table stays calmer.
Making it look nice in five minutes
The food does most of the work here. Pies look good on their own. If you want a bit more:
- A tiered stand gives you height and doubles your space. Pies on the bottom, cookies and bars on top. No stand? A cutting board set on a stack of two or three books does the same job.
- One small cluster of gourds (on Amazon) at one end of the table.
- A few sprigs of eucalyptus or leaves tucked behind the carafes.
- A cloth napkin in a fall color under the stack of plates.
That’s enough. If you want a candle, keep it away from the napkins and the people reaching across.
Keeping it tidy through the evening
Don’t put everything out at once. Set out half the cookies and keep the rest back. When a pie gets down to the last couple of slices, move them to a small plate and take the empty dish away. A table with less food that’s neatly arranged looks better than a full one that’s been picked over. One quick tidy halfway through the evening is all it needs.
The cook gets to sit down, which was the goal from the start.