The making of an awesome Valentine's day's dessert table

This past weekend we had an event at church for which I had to create a Valentine's Day themed dessert/snack table.

My mom picked the white, pink, red color scheme, so we wanted to have all the sweets be those colors.

We had chocolate drizzled/dipped white popcorn, pretzels, oreos, red velvet cake pops, and marshmellow pops.

There are lots of pictures, so bear with me

Here are the ingredients we used to yield about 200 treats

Not pictured is also a pack of vanilla almond bark used to covered the cake pops with. And about 150 cellophane bags (optional) and about 20 yards of ribbon.

My mom and I first started by separating the chocolate chips that came in the Valentine's Day pack

(We couldn't find any bags of all red chocolate chips). On a side note: to make the chocolate a little less thick, we added about half of a table spoon of oil to each color.. It worked great for the red chips, but not so much for the chocolate ones. Next time I would not add any to either one because they don't really need it and it just made it really hard for the chocolate to set.

For the brownies we made two boxes and used a big cookie sheet (about 20x12?) to bake them. It yield about  60 brownies. I then made a heart "template" out of a piece of paper (folded in half and cut half of a heart, opened it up and both sides were symmetrical). I sprinkled white sugar with a sieve and tadah! 

        

For the red velvet we just bought a box mix, baked the cake, waited until it was cool and cumbled the mixture. Now, you are supposed to add some frosting to help the pops stay together, but we didn't have any, so we decided that we didnt need it. Big NO NO!! The cake pops were falling appart when we tried to dip them in the white almond bark... So we came up with the idea of adding a little bit of almond bark, and then put them in the freezer (it was no more than 20 mins) and they held up so much better.. for next time (if there is a next time) we will definitely add the frosting to the mix. 

For the popcorn we popped all three "bowls" that came in this box. We drizzled red and black chocolate on top and then put a bunch in little cellophane bags. To drizzle the chocolate on everything I followed the melting instructions on the packaged and then just dipped a fork in the container and drizzled multiple things at a time (as to not waste any chocolate).

    

Moving on to the oreos. Those were somewhat easier because we didn't have to bake, but it was still kind of difficult getting a nice, not so thick, even coat. I used a fork to help me out.. next time I think I would stick them in a stick and use that instead of the fork. We then added some edible pearls, red sprinkles and red drizzle.

These marshmallow pops were one of my favorites.. They were so simple, and tasted delicious! Very self explanatory. Stuck a stick into each heart shapped marshmallow and then simply drizzled the chocolate on top. 

For a nicer touch, we also put the marshmallow pops in cellophane bags and tied a cute bow on it.

For the pretzels, we bought yogurt covered ones and we just drizzled the red chocolate on top

Lastly, we bought a pack (I wish we would have bought more!) of these walmart generic marshmallow fudge treats. They were already covered in chocolate, so we just added the drizzle and people were so amazed by them

And here are some pictures of all the treats on the table (we had 3 scheduled times for the event, so we only put out a third of all the treats at once).

At the beginning of setting up (we didn't know we had to use a black table cloth, so we just use the white and pink table clothes we brought as accents). My moma and I made the tissue flowers (tutorial coming up soon)

And we added height by wrapping cardboard boxes in white paper and then adding some pop of color with tissue paper.

We had to leave some room for mints and some paper/forms that were needed. 

I know, there is an empty plate in the middle of the display, it was part of what we were promoting (asking people to sign up to help serve food at lunches)

A few close ups of the treats on display

             

This past weekend we had an event at church for which I had to create a Valentine's Day themed dessert/snack table.

My mom picked the white, pink, red color scheme, so we wanted to have all the sweets be those colors.

We had chocolate drizzled/dipped white popcorn, pretzels, oreos, red velvet cake pops, and marshmellow pops.

There are lots of pictures, so bear with me

Here are the ingredients we used to yield about 200 treats

Not pictured is also a pack of vanilla almond bark used to covered the cake pops with. And about 150 cellophane bags (optional) and about 20 yards of ribbon.

My mom and I first started by separating the chocolate chips that came in the Valentine's Day pack

(We couldn't find any bags of all red chocolate chips). On a side note: to make the chocolate a little less thick, we added about half of a table spoon of oil to each color.. It worked great for the red chips, but not so much for the chocolate ones. Next time I would not add any to either one because they don't really need it and it just made it really hard for the chocolate to set.

For the brownies we made two boxes and used a big cookie sheet (about 20x12?) to bake them. It yield about  60 brownies. I then made a heart "template" out of a piece of paper (folded in half and cut half of a heart, opened it up and both sides were symmetrical). I sprinkled white sugar with a sieve and tadah! 

        

For the red velvet we just bought a box mix, baked the cake, waited until it was cool and cumbled the mixture. Now, you are supposed to add some frosting to help the pops stay together, but we didn't have any, so we decided that we didnt need it. Big NO NO!! The cake pops were falling appart when we tried to dip them in the white almond bark... So we came up with the idea of adding a little bit of almond bark, and then put them in the freezer (it was no more than 20 mins) and they held up so much better.. for next time (if there is a next time) we will definitely add the frosting to the mix. 

For the popcorn we popped all three "bowls" that came in this box. We drizzled red and black chocolate on top and then put a bunch in little cellophane bags. To drizzle the chocolate on everything I followed the melting instructions on the packaged and then just dipped a fork in the container and drizzled multiple things at a time (as to not waste any chocolate).

    

Moving on to the oreos. Those were somewhat easier because we didn't have to bake, but it was still kind of difficult getting a nice, not so thick, even coat. I used a fork to help me out.. next time I think I would stick them in a stick and use that instead of the fork. We then added some edible pearls, red sprinkles and red drizzle.

These marshmallow pops were one of my favorites.. They were so simple, and tasted delicious! Very self explanatory. Stuck a stick into each heart shapped marshmallow and then simply drizzled the chocolate on top. 

For a nicer touch, we also put the marshmallow pops in cellophane bags and tied a cute bow on it.

For the pretzels, we bought yogurt covered ones and we just drizzled the red chocolate on top

Lastly, we bought a pack (I wish we would have bought more!) of these walmart generic marshmallow fudge treats. They were already covered in chocolate, so we just added the drizzle and people were so amazed by them

And here are some pictures of all the treats on the table (we had 3 scheduled times for the event, so we only put out a third of all the treats at once).

At the beginning of setting up (we didn't know we had to use a black table cloth, so we just use the white and pink table clothes we brought as accents). My moma and I made the tissue flowers (tutorial coming up soon)

And we added height by wrapping cardboard boxes in white paper and then adding some pop of color with tissue paper.

We had to leave some room for mints and some paper/forms that were needed. 

I know, there is an empty plate in the middle of the display, it was part of what we were promoting (asking people to sign up to help serve food at lunches)

A few close ups of the treats on display