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Think charcuterie boards are just for meats and cheeses? Guess again! Dessert grazing boards are a popular dessert trend and can be made to feed any size crowd, big or small. This festive colorful Easter candy themed dessert charcuterie board will be the hit of your holiday dessert table!
As I have learned over the last couple of years, a charcuterie or grazing board can take on many different appearances. The very first charcuterie post on my site was this easy cheese board tutorial that walks you through setting up a simple board.
Dessert Grazing Boards Are Always a Hit!
Since then, I have had a lot of fun focusing on DESSERT grazing boards. I love these boards so much because they are always bursting with color, are pretty to look at, and offer an array of sweet treats to suit any taste preferences!
Check out the other dessert grazing boards I have posted:
- St. Patrick’s Day Dessert Charcuterie Board
- Valentine’s Day Dessert Charcuterie Board
- Christmas Dessert Charcuterie Board
Today’s addition to our collection was especially fun to make because what holiday is more closely tied to candy than EASTER? (None! The answer is NONE!)
p.s. Don’t forget to skim the rest of our Easter content!
Pick a Color Scheme
I highly recommend picking a color scheme for your dessert board. As you can tell, I focused not only on traditional popular Easter candies, but also on BRIGHT colors mixed with Spring-like pastels.
I took advantage of some of my small bowls for loose candies like M&Ms, jelly beans and Robin Eggs (mini Whoppers).
You can use any large serving platter or wooden board to make this dessert spread.
Aim for 8-12 Different Treats
For a nice variety of treats, I recommend choosing around 8-12 different treats to put on your dessert board. The variety really gives your board some eye-appeal and makes the various foods pop!
For this Easter Dessert Charcuterie Board, I used:
- Frosted Sugar Cookies
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs
- Easter M&Ms
- Easter Peanut M&Ms
- Jelly Beans
- Pink Chicks Peeps
- Yellow Chicks Peeps
- Hershey’s Kisses
- Miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
- Whoppers Robin Eggs
- Yogurt Covered Pretzels
- Mini Kit Kats
Choose Your Board
There is no limit to the shape or size board or tray you can use. We used a wooden board that measures approximately 20 by 40 inches (the actually food surface area is a little smaller than that). You could use a board like ours or even a cutting board would work great.
Here are some options you might be interested in:
Creative Co-op Round Decorative Iron Tray with Handles
Large Bamboo Wood Cutting Board
Large Round Charcuterie Cheese Board
Bracey Faux Real Wood Handled Serving Tray
Sylmar Wooden Bark Ottoman Tray
Donna Rectangular Wooden Serving Tray
Patrina Wash Wavy Wood Accent Tray
How to Arrange the Treats
The trick to making a really awesome looking dessert charcuterie board is to arrange your items in small groups all over the board. Sometimes, I focus on making things fairly symmetrical looking. On other boards, the treats are arranged at random. No matter which route you take, don’t be afraid to make some shifts and changes towards the end to get a snug fit.
I started with 3 bowls towards the center of the board. The bowls were filled with the following: M&Ms, Peanut M&Ms and Jelly Beans. As you will see at the end of the process pictures, by the time all was said and done, I added a 4th small bowl. The final bowl contained Mini Whoppers (Robin Eggs).
Next I began to fill the the lower corner. I used frosted sugar cookies and layered them in a straight row along the bottom of the tray.
I decided to add the Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs next. Instead of stacking them, they were laid in a single layer, flat and flush with each other.
It was at this point that I added the mini whoppers (Robin Eggs). I chose a bowl that matched the jelly bean bowl and placed them on the board. I had a feeling that by the time I was finished, the bowls would be in different locations than where they began. You can already see how the board is really starting to come alive with bright colors!
We had a few packages of Peeps on hand and I chose the pink and yellow chicks for this occasion. The bright pink Peeps settled into the lower right corner.
The top right corner was filled in with more layered sugar cookies. At this point, I still wasn’t quite sure where the final placement of the candy bowls would be.
We found some yogurt dipped pretzels in the bakery at Walmart. I liked the Spring colors and thought they might match my color scheme. The pretzels were scattered in the top left corner, around the bowl of M&M’s.
Next up – the yellow Peeps! See how it’s all coming together?
As I worked to fill up the rest of the board, I had mini Kit Kats, Hershey’s Kisses and mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups still to add. I used them to fill up the remaining space.
Whatever theme and color scheme you decide to go with, your dessert board will look awesome! I actually had a lot of fun putting this one together and my family was only TOO happy to help devour it after I finished taking pictures!
If you decide to put together a dessert board of your own, let me know how it turned out! If you post a picture of it on social media, feel free to tag me. I would love to see the final result!