How can we make our gluten-free cake alternative look fancy?

How can we make our gluten-free cake alternative look fancy?

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My fiancé and I are both gluten-free. We decided early on not to have a wedding cake we wouldn't be able to eat, but the more I looked into gluten-free cakes the more discouraged I got. They are so expensive and people still mentioned wanting a regular cake, too.

Then I remembered that we love apple crisp. The wedding is in October, apple crisp is amazing, and our venue already makes a great gluten-free one.

My question: how do we dress it up for the wedding? I searched the internet far and wide and all I see are towers of cupcakes, donuts, and pies. I can't figure out how to make a big tray of apple crisp look like a special dessert and also avoid being wasteful. We don't need one hundred tiny glass jars and a throwaway option isn't our style. Any ideas on making our gluten-free cake alternative look fancier? Thanks! -
Ani

Great dessert idea! We're all about cake alternatives around here. If you're not down for individual servings (in jars or otherwise), then we'll need to narrow down choices for a big ol' dish of crisp.

The first bet would be to ask your venue if they have any options for making it look more exciting. And if not, then here are some options for crisps or any less-than-exciting-looking food that you might want to serve (including savory stuff that you're self-catering!)...

An elevated serving dish

Separating out one large crisp platter into a few allows you to harness the look of a tiered serving dish like this one. Just make sure to check with your venue to see if they can work with whatever style you choose.

This kind also allows for smaller, round dishes like pie pans, which could be really easy to adapt without altering the recipe.

A big glass dish

If you're really going for a different style of dessert, you could harness the power of glass to show off some layers in a big trifle dish. You can find tons of these on Amazon or at your local home stores. The trick is having the venue adapt the apple crisp to the layered look, but that's probably totally doable.

A shmancy serving dish

These are old skool wedding buffet standards, but they DO fancy things up. Add some greenery around it, a plate of gluten-free cookies, and it can look pretty swank.

Add a little decor to the table

When in doubt, add some flair to the table! A little signage lets everyone know what's in it (hello, apples!), and makes for a little keepsake after the wedding. You could pair it with a few glass jars full of whole apples to bring the fall theme home.

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