Dinner parties
What to bring to a dinner party in Vancouver when you're not bringing wine
The problem with bringing dessert to someone else’s dinner party is that dessert usually creates work for the host. It needs a plate, a serving utensil, and a place in a fridge that is already full. A well-intentioned tart can end up being the most inconvenient thing on the table.
A box of cream puffs asks for nothing. It arrives finished and portioned. It opens on the table and that is the whole of the preparation.
Why it works better than wine
Wine is the default, and the default has a problem: your host has already chosen what to serve, and your bottle joins a queue. It might get opened, it might get shelved for a year. Dessert is a gap most hosts have not filled, because making a main course and a dessert on the same evening is more than most people take on.
It also excludes nobody. Not everyone drinks. Everyone eats dessert.
Why it works better than a cake
A cake commits the evening to a moment — the cutting, the plating, the serving. That is fine at a birthday and slightly heavy at a dinner for eight. Choux is lower stakes. The box opens, people take one, the conversation does not stop.
On mixed tables
If you do not know the room, order a mixed box. Six flavours means the person who does not like chocolate and the person who thinks anything citrus is a waste of a dessert both find something. You do not need to have asked in advance.
One thing to know
Eat them the day you collect them. We fill on the morning of pickup rather than the night before, because a filled choux shell begins softening within hours. That makes them excellent for a dinner that evening and unsuitable for something next weekend.
Orders close Wednesday for Saturday collection in Metro Vancouver.
How to order
Orders close Wednesday for Saturday collection
We bake to order in Metro Vancouver. Orders close Wednesday for Saturday collection, and everything is filled the morning you collect it. Pickup only — we don’t ship.
Also worth reading
- Weddings & croquembouche
Croquembouche in Metro Vancouver: a tower of cream puffs that needs no cutting, no plates and no forks, and serves as the dessert table centrepiece.
- Corporate & client gifting
Boxed cream puffs for Metro Vancouver offices and client gifts. No plates, no forks, built to your headcount, invoiced. Two weeks' notice above 80 puffs.
- All occasions