Since April is my birthday month, I felt like it was only fitting to create a dessert charcuterie board for our monthly custom charcuterie board series.
I have the biggest sweet tooth, so the biggest challenge for this dessert charcuterie board was how to narrow it down to a few of my favorites. If you’ve been around for a while, you know we share all sorts of desserts that would also make perfect birthday desserts if you don’t want to create an entire dessert board.
Bubbly Birthday Desserts
So before you ask, let me just say it now, yes, all of these birthday desserts on this custom charcuterie board have sparkling wine in the recipe.
While I love baking from scratch, there are times that I do not have time, don’t have the ingredients or don’t have the energy. So, this year, we are trying out easy box recipes where we can easily replace an ingredient with bubbly.
Boxed Bubbly Desserts
Our new favorite, easy to make dessert which was absolutely perfect for this dessert charcuterie board is a boxed Funfetti cake mix where we replace the water with a sparkling rosé. This recipe is now on repeat for all birthday desserts.
The other boxed recipe we made for this dessert charcuterie board was the Ghiradelli Triple Chocolate Brownie mix and Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. In the brownie mix, we replaced the water with sparkling almond from Wilson Creek. We used both of these boxes to make the Brookies seen on our dessert board.
Dessert Charcuterie Board
Let’s talk about all the delicious birthday desserts making an appearance on this amazing dessert board. When brainstorming my favorite birthday desserts, I tried to include some new desserts we had not tried before along with some favorites as well.
- Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes were a treat when we were growing up. My mom made them all the time, so when we decided we needed another bubbly Funfetti cake recipe on the board, ice cream cone cupcakes it was. It’s super simple, you make the batter according to the directions on the box (replacing water with sparkling rosé) and then pour it into cake cones. We followed the cupcake baking instruction and frosted with a bubbly buttercream frosting.
- Mini Bubbly Pound Cake with bubbly buttercream frosting. The recipe for this is below.
- Cake Pops from Bergies Sweet Treats because if you saw my bubbly cake pops from Easter, you won’t be surprised that I called in reinforcements for this dessert charcuterie board.
- Bubbly Sugar Cookies which are from my all time favorite cookie baker, Jenny Cookies. This recipe is so easy and so good. Of course, we tweaked it a bit to include bubbly, but we’re pretty sure Jenny would approve. The buttercream frosting is also adapted from Jenny Cookies recipe in her cookbook, Cookie Class to include sparkling wine.
- Bubbly Brownie Bites are seriously one of my all time weaknesses. And my favorite box recipe is the Ghiradelli Triple Chocolate that you can find at Costco. Since we didn’t make it there, we turned the Double Chocolate Brownie box into a Triple Chocolate with bubbly! And they did not disappoint.
- Bubbly Brookies using that brownie mix above. We layered that with the Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip cookie mix on top and the perfect Triple Chocolate Bubbly Brookies were created.
- Bubbly Side of Life chocolates are something we love to make to add pops of color to our custom charcuterie board. Aren’t they adorable?
Bubbly Pound Cake Recipe
- 1 ¼ cups Imperial margarine
- 2 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs (room temperature)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sparkling wine (we used Wilson Creek Almond)
- Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray each mini bundt with baking spray.
- Using a stand mixer, beat the butter until light and creamy on medium for about 2 minutes.
- Slowly add in the granulated sugar. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy on medium.
- Add eggs, one at time and mixing in between until combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Reduce to low speed and add in the salt and the flour, one cup at a time, mixing until just combined.
- Remove the mixer from the base and use a rubber spatula to fold the bubbly into the mixture until well combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake about 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Baking with Bubbly
All of these recipes were made using either Wilson Creek Sparkling Rosé, Sparkling Brut or Sparkling Almond. And yes, I enjoyed pairing some these desserts with these Wilson Creek Sparkling Wines as well.
Now, I happened to have all three of these bottles opened already which is why we used them, but I have often said, don’t ever dump a sparkling wine that you’re not enjoying because you can always bake it with. We oftentimes use canned bubbly to bake with especially if we’re in a rush and can’t enjoy an entire bottle.
Pairing Bubbly + Desserts
So you have this big dessert charcuterie board and, of course, you want to enjoy all of these sweet treats with some sparkling wine, right? Well, here’s the rule of thumb or you will ruin the taste of your dessert and the taste of the bubbly.
The sparkling wine you choose to pair with your dessert board should always be sweeter than the dessert. For example, the sugar cookies are not terribly sweet, so it made perfect sense to pair them with the Sparkling Almond which is a bit on the sweeter side thanks to the Almond.
Here are several cheat sheets (depending on the type of sparkling wine you’re buying) if you find yourself at the liquor store trying to figure out what type of sparkling wine to buy to ensure it’s sweeter than your desserts.
Want more?
Like I said, we tried to create a mix of recipes that I know, love and can’t get enough of along with some new ones.
Last year for a girls’ trip, we made a giant charTREATerie board to snack on all weekend long. It was filled with delicious sweet treats from Trader Joe’s and so easy to put together.
Tell us, what is your favorite bubbly treat on this dessert charcuterie board? Comment on our Bubbly Side of Life Instagram Page or send us a message.
By the way, if you’re looking for an easy way to organize all of these delicious bubbly recipes, follow us on Pinterest.
