Fun Fondue Dippers Series, Pt. I–Dessert Dippers

Have you ever struggled to come up with a menu?  It seems that hatching the idea sometimes takes three times as long as it does to shop and prepare the meal.  You can cut down on needless indecision by letting me help come you with your fondue dipper decisions.  In this series of three posts I have put together a collection of dipper ideas for your easy reference.

Please note, you will most likely want to decide on what type of  fondue you will be making before you select your dippers.  Then, you will know what will pair well with that particular fondue.

Let’s start with dessert dippers, which I have broken the down into three categories: cakes, fruits, and “other.”

Fruits

The fruits are limitless, of course, but I will give you some ideas of some popular ones that I feel go great with dessert fondues. Strawberries are on the top of my list, but there are raspberries, mandarin oranges, blackberries, blueberries, pitted cherries.  Notice, all of these fruits are easy to prepare as they may only require washing, draining or cutting off the leaves on top.

Some fruits that require more preparation are fresh peaches, pears, or pineapple, passion fruit, guava, mangoes, fresh pineapple chunks, banana slices, and apple wedges.  These are equally great choices. However, with the bananas and apples you will want to save cutting these up for the last minute  Or, if you want to you could add the cut apples ahead of time, you can add them to a solution of lemon juice and cold water to keep them from browning.

Cakes

The cake category seems equally ample.  You could use angel food cake, pound cake, chiffon cake squares, white cake, gingerbread cake or spice cake.  A dark chocolate cake or brownies could be a great dipper for a white chocolate fondue, or even a butterscotch or fruity fondue. Really, if you have a great cake recipe it would work well with fondue.  I will be sharing many of my favorite cake recipes as I continue. You could even use some fruit cakes like pumpkin, zucchini, banana nut bread or cake.

Other

Some items in my “other” category include nuts, marshmallows, rice crispy squares, peanut butter bars (cookies, made on a sheet and cut after they’ve cooled), fudge, toasted waffle squares, biscotti, crepe pieces, or unfilled mini éclairs.  You could also choose to have chopped nuts or sprinkles to add for a topping after dipping, or canned whipped topping to squirt for a creamy finish.

Desserts are meant to be fun, so don’t stress over preparation.  Keep it simple and have a variety of fondue dippers from several categories.  You may even want to serve dessert first.

For the next installment in my Fondue Dipper series click here: Vegetable Dippers.