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Although I love cheese and crackers, charcuterie boards were never more than something I enjoyed having other people make for me. Then there were candy boards, then butter boards. I always resisted the urge to make my own. When I finally saw people land on buttercream boards, I knew my time had come. I’ve already shared my favorite small-batch buttercream recipe. The question became: how can I take my buttercream and the dessert board concept and make it my own? The answer? A three dip dessert board!

How To Make Dessert Board Dips

I decided to create vanilla buttercream, dark chocolate buttercream, and dulce de leche for my dessert board dips.

I used my tried and true buttercream recipe, using four tablespoons of butter and a splash of vanilla to create the vanilla buttercream and four tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of dark cocoa powder for the dark chocolate buttercream.

I then made a batch of Instant Pot dulce de leche for the third dip.

How To Add Dips To Dessert Board

Obviously, you could just add bowls of each dip to the board you’re using, but that’s too easy. I decided to try a really big piping tip and pipe on squiggles of each dip directly onto the board. I then immediately began to question the whole thing, thinking my board would look like a hot mess.

Keeping hope alive, I started piling on graham crackers, apple slices, and strawberries.

Suddenly we had something magic. So simple, yet so cute!

Of course, being as extra the guacamole at Chipotle, I decided to throw on some sprinkles, too.

I’ll be vacuuming up sprinkles for the next few weeks, but I regret nothing.

You can easily make this dessert board your own by adding different fruits and cookies. Mini marshmallows would be good, too!

This falls firmly into the world of TikTok made me do it, except with a bit of a twist. I saw a video of someone making Dulce de Leche in their crockpot, mentioning it took 10 hours, and I said, “No thank you.” Partially because that seemed like a long time and mostly because I don’t have a crockpot. I do, however, have an Instant Pot, and a little digging told me I could probably make a batch in 35 minutes. That was all it took to convince me that I needed to try my hand at Instant Pot Dulce de Leche!

Instant Pot Dulce de Leche ingredients

To make your pressure cooker Dulce de Leche, you’ll need:

• Instant Pot or pressure cooker
• 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• teaspoon of vanilla extract
• lots of aluminum foil

If you’re wondering if this will work in a smaller Instant Pot, the answer is yes! That’s exactly what I used!

How to make Dulce de Leche in your Instant Pot

If you do a search, you’ll see that pressure cooker Dulce de Leche is not exactly an original concept. You will also see a ton of debate. Do you leave the lid on the sweetened condensed milk or do you take it off? I’m very firmly in the camp of “don’t do things that could blow up your house,” so I took the lid off of my can.

I removed the label and lid from my sweetened condensed milk and then carefully wrapped it in about four layers of foil, pressing the bottom of the can firmly on my countertop to make sure it was flat. I then added ten cups of water to my Instant Pot and placed the wrapped can of milk carefully in the middle of the rack. I set the time for 35 minutes of pressure cooking and then crossed my fingers.

There’s more debate on what to do after the pressure cooking cycle is finished. Release the pressure? Let it vent naturally? Remove immediately or let it wait? Well, it turns out I got a phone call and I didn’t get to my Dulce de Leche for well over an hour. It didn’t matter!

Once I carefully removed it from the still-hot water with tongs, and then even more carefully attempted to unwrap it, I had a very weird looking little can of cooked condensed milk. But after adding in a teaspoon of vanilla extract and giving it a good stir I had the delicious caramel-ish spread I was hoping for!

If you’re wondering why I was making a batch of Dulce de Leche in my Instant Pot (outside of curiosity, of course) make sure you check out our three-dip dessert board!

I grew up on Monkey Bread. It was one of those treats we had at every special occasion in our family. I think that’s because it’s one of the easiest desserts you can make, and the pull-apart pieces are always perfect for grazing. When I heard that Disneyland had created their own pumpkin-flavored version, I knew I had to try and make it at home!

Pumpkin Monkey Bread Recipe

Ingredients: 

• 2 Cans Refrigerated Biscuits
• 1 stick butter
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• ¼ cup of canned pumpkin purée 
• 4 Tablespoons of cream cheese
• 1 Tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice
• Whipped Cream

How to Make Pumpkin Monkey Bread

Add sugar to a gallon-sized plastic zipper bag. Sprinkle in pumpkin pie spice and shake until it is evenly distributed. 

Cut each refrigerated biscuit into six equal-sized pieces. You can do this with a knife, but if you have kitchen scissors they work perfectly for this step! 

Add biscuit pieces to the plastic bag and shake until each piece is covered in the sugar and spice mixture. 

Place sugar-coated biscuit pieces into a well-greased bundt pan.

Tip: You can also place the pieces into a muffin tin or bundtlette pan to make individual monkey breads. 

Melt butter and remaining sugar in a saucepan with the pumpkin purée and cream cheese until it’s smooth. You may have small pieces of cream cheese remaining even after everything else is melted. This is fine!

Pour the pumpkin butter mixture on top of the biscuits and bake at 350º for approximately 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Mini monkey breads will take less time. 

Remove the monkey bread from the oven and allow it to cool for just a few minutes. 

Run a knife around the edge to make sure the monkey bread isn’t sticking to the pan, then invert on your serving plate. 

Serve the monkey bread warm.

At Disneyland they top the monkey bread with a pumpkin drizzle, which you can create by reserving some of the pumpkin butter mixture to add when serving. I skipped that part, as I found the pumpkin monkey bread had plenty of yummy gooiness without that extra drizzle. I did add the whipped cream, however, which is something I would never have considered adding to monkey bread in the past. The whipped cream really knocked this easy and delicious dessert up to the next level. 

This Disney-inspired Pumpkin Monkey Bread is sure to please the whole family, and it’s a perfect way to serve up a little magic even when you’re not at your favorite theme park.