This year, I felt like planning something a little different for our holiday celebration – and looked to the crisp, cold weather for inspiration.

Enter: ICE CREAM!

Nothing is a bigger crowd pleaser than this sweet treat, so I thought: Why not make it the center of attention at this year’s fete?

If you want to go all out and make your own rich, fresh vanilla bean, ice cream from scratch here is a recipe we created for Electrolux. If not, store bought ice cream works perfectly too. As for the rest of the holiday bar, here’s tips on setting it up:

1. THE SET-UP

Starting with a blank slate, add the following to the your table:

Create your ice cream centerpiece, using a generously sized serving bowl.

Arrange your topping vessels into groups, making sure to mix heights and sizes to keep the layout interesting. We broke our bar into the following groups: liquid toppings, classic toppings, and festive toppings.

Make sure you don’t have your ice cream melting or your caramel sauces cooling by adding dry ice to the bottom of the ice cream bowl, and using mini candle or kerosene heaters at the bottom of anything that needs to be kept warm.

2. THE TREATS

I love mixing unexpected tastes to create a unique, memorable Sunday – so get creative!

Some ideas:

hot espresso
scotch
bourbon caramel sauce
fleur de sel
festive sprinkles
shortbread cookies
crushed candied almonds
kettle popcorn
macarons
tray of sliced fruit
white & dark chocolate bark

3. THE FINISHING TOUCHES

Add name cards to each vessel and created a ‘toppings suggestion’ menu board – scotch & pepper, fleur de sel & bourbon caramel sauce – to encourage guests to be as creative as possible.

Finally, finish the table with some glittery silver and gold ornaments to really polish the look.

Let the festivities begin!