Retirement party: mini dessert buffet

I love a good party especially when I'm incharge of planning the dessert portion of the menu! My mom has recently retired so we decided to throw her a party to thank her. She has worked as a nurse for the past 42 years as well as raised us four kids. If that doesn't deserve a party I don't know what does!

I decided to go with a dessert buffet; I like a little taste of multiple things. When planning a dessert buffet; go with variety and things you do well.  I decided to go with two new recipes; that can work out but doesn't always!

I chose four items for the buffet. Macaroons, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, double chocolate cookies and marshmallows dipped in caramel and chocolate. The nice thing about the recipes I chose was that I was able to bake ahead and freeze. That is important to note when hosting a big crowd. I have learned from experience to not over extend yourself. I knew with two kids I wouldn't be able to count on "day of" baking. I only left two tasks for the day of; icing the mini cupcakes and dipping the marshmallows. 

I baked these macaroons  5 days before and froze them in an airtight container.

I will definitly keep this macaroon recipe; I did however use unsweetened coconut and I liked that they weren't too sweet.

I froze marshmallows on lollipop sticks and then dipped them in homemade caramel and then froze them again. This I did two days before and left them uncovered in the freezer.

Since I was going with a mini theme I bought a scoop to use for the cookies to make them uniform.  I can't  rely on myself to make everything the same. 

The day of the party all I had to do for the cookies was put them in the vases. 

As for the marshmallows all I had to do was dip them in chocolate. At the last minute I decided to just drizzle the chocolate on them.  Jeff had warned me that dipping them would be too much chocolate but I still gave it a try and discovered that yes drizzling was way prettier.

And Tada!

It was a great success!

Everyone loved the variety of the dessert buffet although the hit was the marshmallows with not even one left! Another thing people were talking about was the fact that I extremely look like my mom. Well that is a great compliment! If I can only go through my life with the grace she does I will have done something right. She has such a love for people, sincere kindness and a faith that  can't be shaken.  We are so excited to be apart of this next chapter of her life. 

*mom with her new employers!