A complete guide to creating a bridal shower dessert table.

Bridal Shower dessert recipes included!

My sweet, beautiful cousin is getting married in two weeks, and having her bridal shower this weekend! I was asked to bring and bake the dessert for her Tea-themed bridal shower, I am thrilled to be putting together the dessert menu, we have a large family and 45 people were invited. I wanted to plan for most people to show up because what a bummer it would be dessert-less at a bridal shower! I wanted to make a complete guide to creating a bridal shower dessert table to document this fun moment for me, but also to help anyone else who didn’t know where to start!

For the dessert table, I wanted to do something unique, while also tying in my grandma’s recipes. I will be laying out the process I used to plan, prep, and bake these recipes leading up to the day of the shower! Her bridal shower was on a Sunday, and I started doing really early preparations on Thursday, so 3 days before. This was partly because we had other events that weekend, and also because I wanted to split up the work, so I didn’t have a singular day in the kitchen from sunrise to sunset. I find that breaking up the work into chunks, over a couple of days gives me a lot more energy to complete a project, and I am able to take the time and have attention to detail that I wouldn’t get if I was cramming it into a day.

Bridal Shower Dessert Recipes

All of the recipes I used when making my bridal shower dessert baking guide are my grandma’s recipes! I have adapted them a bit to make a creative and fun dessert table! The desserts I will be making are:

Mason Jar Cake: a strawberry shortcake mason jar cake adapted from my grandma’s strawberry shortcake recipe! It has layers of a homemade biscuit, whipping cream, and fresh strawberries!

Mason Jar Cake: adapted from one of the most popular recipes I have posted: My grandma’s 100-year-old fudge cake recipe! Alternating layers of the dense fudge cake, and cream filling.

Cake Pops from my Grandma’s Recipe – traditional cake pops adapted from the Simple White Cake recipe.

Bridal Shower baking planner

Thursday Evening

I started “prep” on Thursday, but the only thing I did was collect the Mason Jars I was using for the Mason Jar Cake, and run them through the dishwasher so they were crystal clear for the shower!

Friday

Friday morning I Baked the white cake I was using for the cake pops and started the “cake pop” process. Once the cake was baked I incorporated the frosting and scooped them into balls. You can read my full “how to make cake pops” recipe guide here. Once they were in balls I popped them into the fridge and let them sit in there until after work

Friday evening after work is when I started dipping the cake pops, now this was definitely a learning curve, and you can read all about what I learned, and what I would do differently in the recipe guide!

Saturday

Saturday was go time! I woke up, and in the morning I prepared both “base” layers that were going to be in my jars. One was preparing and baking the shortcakes, and baking them in muffin tins, and once those were completed I prepared and baked the chocolate muffins. I took each of those recipes and prepared them regularly, the only change was that I baked them in muffin tins. I scooped 2 Tbs of batter using my cookie scoop, to be sure not to make cake layers that were too thick.

Greased the muffin tins well, and after they baked, I let them cool for a few hours.

After they were completely cooled, I began assembling the cakes!

For the strawberry shortcakes, I layered them in this order

shortcake, cream, strawberries, and more cream

For the chocolate cake jars I layered them:

Chocolate cake, cream, chocolate cake, cream

I sealed the jars with their lids and kept them in the fridge until the next day for the shower!

Baking tools I used

The key items I needed to create the “dessert dream” I had were mason jars, for the Mason Jar cake. I used the small 8 oz jars which were perfect for a single-serve dessert!

I also used cake pop sticks, and a cake pop stand. My sweet husband actually built me a custom cake pop stand but this one is very similar! One key thing when I made the cake pops was using a cookie scoop to get the same size balls every time.