With Easter around the corner, Instagram is filled with tons of gorgeous, abundant appetizer and dessert boards, perfect for entertaining. You may be thinking that all these stunning spreads are only attainable by the professional food stylist. Well, your viral post prayers have been answered by food stylist, Meg Quinn (@ainttooproudtomeg). She is sharing her best secrets and tips for making an Epic Easter Board at home.
Meg has divided the boards into three main groups:
- Vegetables and Hummus
- Meats and Cheeses
- Dessert
Let’s start with Vegetables and Hummus.
Meg color-blocks the hummus and vegetables on the board to create a rainbow effect. She starts each board by placing the bowls of hummus down. This helps to visualize where to position the vegetables. For the hummus, Meg uses store-bought plain hummus, a store-bought beet hummus, and, for green hummus, she blends some spinach with plain hummus.
Now it’s time to start filling in the board. Start at one end and work your way across from color to color. Below are a list of veggies Meg uses:
Multi-colored carrots, radishes, red and yellow endive, snap peas, broccolini, green and white cauliflower, orange and yellow cherry tomatoes and cucumber. Make sure that all stems for vegetables like the broccolini face inward to give the board a heartier appearance.
If you’re assembling now and serving later, wrap the produce with damp paper towels to prevent them from drying out and wilting.
For a finishing touch, stud the beet hummus with pomegranate seeds and black sesame seeds, sprinkle the spinach hummus with fresh cilantro and dried basil, and top the plain hummus with pine nuts and olive oil. And for a gorgeous nod to spring, sprinkle the entire board with a few food-safe chamomile flowers.
On to the second board… the Meats and Cheeses.
Here, Meg uses the same prepping technique and places all of the bowls and jars down first. She includes a bowl of cornichons, a bowl of green olives and a jar of honey. Next, she adds the big-ticket items like large wedges and rounds of cheese.
Meg uses:
Pesto gouda, Mimolette (a French hard cow’s-milk cheese), aged Gouda, aged goat cheese and a small wheel of Brie.
Begin filling out the board around the bowls and cheeses by fanning out the crackers and sliced fruits along its perimeter. This adds visual flare and makes the board really look like a pro put it together. Slice fruits like apples and pears very thin. Here are the fruits Meg uses on this board:
Clementines, green grapes, candied orange slices, dried persimmons, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, kiwis, green pears and Fuji apples.
You can find an array of artisanal crackers at your local grocery or health food store that would be perfect for this spread. Marcona almonds and walnuts can fill in the bald spots and give it a fuller look.
For the meat, Meg adds a trifecta of Calabrese salami, Italian dry salami and salami secchi. To really take this board to the next level, fold the slices of salami into quarters and stand them vertically, edge-side up, to give the appearance of a bouquet of flowers.
For the finishing touches, spring herbs like lavender and thyme give the board a seasonal splash. Sprinkle with chamomile flowers to create continuity among all three boards.
Finally, we have the Dessert Board!
Meg places the bowl of candy-coated chocolates down first and builds out around it. Here is a list of the candy she uses:
Chocolate tear drops, waffle cookies, marshmallow bunnies, marshmallow ducks, creme-filled eggs, chocolate bunnies, green and yellow rock candy, gummy eggs, yogurt covered pretzels, Belgian chocolate flowers, sour fruit leather ribbons, marshmallow carrots, marshmallow chicks, white peanut butter-chocolate cups, chocolate-covered matzo and sugar cookies.
Finish the board with an Easter egg nest made of green grass candy and fill with candy and chocolate eggs. (The trick to unifying this board is to make sure that all the candies have bright pastel colors to match the color scheme of the holiday.) Again, garnish with chamomile flowers.
Take inspiration from Meg, but remember, there are no rules when it comes to building boards. Get creative and have fun with it.
And that, my friends, is how you build an Epic Easter Board!
Thanks to Meg Quinn for putting these boards together!
Source: Make Your Own Epic Easter Appetizer or Dessert Board | The Kitchen: Food Network | Food Network
