For a shower with no meal, plan on four to five small pieces per guest, with something savory in the mix, all of it small enough to eat standing up with a glass in the other hand. That’s the number I work from, and the reasoning behind it is in the piece on dessert per guest.
The rest of this is about why a shower is different, and what that means for the table.
A shower is its own kind of party
Most of the events I bake for have a meal somewhere in them, and dessert comes after. A bridal shower usually doesn’t. It’s an afternoon. People arrive over half an hour, stand and talk, sit down for the gifts, and get up again. Dessert is doing the work lunch would do at another party.
That changes two things. People eat more of it, because there is nothing else. And they eat it over a long stretch, so whatever is on the table at two o’clock has to look the same at four.
A shower also runs high. The guest list leans toward people who came to celebrate and are in no hurry to leave, and the table gets visited more often than the headcount suggests.
What goes on the table
Variety matters more than volume here. Six kinds of small things get eaten more evenly than two kinds of bigger things, and it keeps the table looking full as it goes down.
What I usually build a shower table from:
- Madeleines, laid out on trays, a few per guest. They’re baked the day before, they’re happy at room temperature, and they are the thing people take a second of without thinking about it. What makes a madeleine covers why the timing matters.
- Tartelettes at both ends of the sweet range. The lemon tart with its Italian meringue on the sharp side, the pine nut tart on the nutty side, the raspberry in between.
- Individual entremets or mini fraisiers, for the part of the table that should look like an occasion. If the word is new, this is what an entremet is.
- Something with salt in it. A few small quiches work. An hour into an afternoon that is entirely sweet, people stop eating, and the savory piece is what keeps them at the table.
Everything is portioned. Nobody cuts anything, nobody needs a fork they weren’t handed, and the table can be put together before the first guest arrives.
The centerpiece question
Some showers want one thing in the middle of the table. There are three honest options.
A whole cake, like the Fraisier, gives the room a moment: candles, a photograph, the bride cutting the first slice. It also needs plates, forks, and someone to serve it.
A croquembouche is the French answer to “the thing in the middle,” a tower of choux bound with caramel and assembled on-site. It’s a showpiece, and the trade-offs are real, so read croquembouche, dessert table or plated before deciding.
Or no centerpiece at all. A well-laid table is already the centerpiece, and for a lot of showers that is the better answer.
Heat, patios and the afternoon
A lot of showers here end up outside, or on a covered patio, or in a living room with the doors open. That matters for what goes on the table.
Baked things hold. Madeleines, tart shells, a baked filling. Anything built on cream wants to stay cool, and an afternoon in Houston isn’t cool for most of the year. If the table will be outdoors, tell me early, and read what survives humidity on a dessert table. It changes what I would put out and in what order.
Allergies at a shower
Ask the guest list before the menu is settled. Gluten and nuts are the two that come up most.
Most of what I bake contains wheat and dairy, and often tree nuts. I make gluten-free and nut-free pieces by request with enough notice, but they come out of the same kitchen. The gluten-free orange and pistachio cake contains pistachios, so it solves one guest’s problem and can create another’s. If anyone has a severe allergy, say so at the start, and I will tell you plainly what the risk is.
A small, labeled section of the table for the guests who need it works better than one item trying to serve everyone. It also spares them from having to ask.
A small shower or a set-up table
There are two ways to do this.
For a handful of guests, you can order from the menu, pick a delivery window, and set the boxes out yourself. The cart needs a day’s notice, and whole cakes need two.
If you want the table built for you, that’s a private event. I bring the dessert to the house or the venue the morning of, baked the day before, and lay out the table on-site, from a table of four upward. Showers sit on the same calendar as weddings and corporate events, which is why the second route needs booking ahead.
When to book
Three months is comfortable for a shower. I take four to five private events a month, and showers share that calendar with weddings. For a large shower, four to six weeks is the shortest notice I can usually work with. The booking timeline has the rest.
What to send me
The date and the time of day. The address, and whether it is a home, a club or a venue. Roughly how many guests. Whether there is any meal at all. Anyone with an allergy. Whether you want a centerpiece.
Apply for the date here, or if the shower is part of a wedding I am already baking for, mention it, and we will plan the two together. The wedding page shows what goes on the table on the day itself.