You are cooking for eight on Saturday. The main is handled. Dessert is the part you have not solved, because you do not want to be in the kitchen plating something at 9:40pm while everyone else is at the table, and the last time you made a tart you missed the entire second half of the evening. You also want the night to have a fourth act rather than ending at coffee with people reaching for their phones.
What is appropriate, and what is not
The end of a dinner party is a timing problem, not a baking problem. Anything requiring assembly at the end takes the host out of the room at exactly the moment the conversation is best. Something that goes on a board with coffee and a bottle of something requires forty seconds and keeps you in your chair.
Put it out with the coffee, not before. The purpose of the last course is to buy another thirty minutes at the table. Plates cleared, coffee poured, one board in the middle that people pick at — that structure is why Italian meals run long, and it works in a house in California the same way.
Do not serve a rich dessert after a rich meal. If the main was braised, the last course should be dry and small. Something dense and sweet after four courses ends the evening rather than extending it.
If you have been asked to bring dessert, ask what the main is first. Bringing chocolate after a chocolate course is a real risk, and the host will not tell you unless you ask directly.
What to send
If you'd rather bake it: cantucci, baked Wednesday for a Saturday dinner. They are the one dessert that is better on day three than day one, so baking ahead is an improvement rather than a compromise, and it keeps you out of the kitchen at 9:40. /ricette/.
What to write
- Bringing the last course. You don't have to do anything with it but open it.
- Put this out with the coffee, not before. It buys you another half hour at the table.
- You cooked for eleven people. The least I can do is handle 9:40pm.
- Not dessert exactly. The thing after dessert.
- Ask me what wine and I'll say the same thing I always say. Vin santo.
12 more lines for this occasion →
Timing
Order to arrive at least three days before the dinner, which gives you a buffer if a delivery slips and removes the Saturday morning errand. Sealed, it keeps for weeks, so buying a week out is fine and buying for the next three dinners at once is better. If you are bringing it to someone else's table, tell the host in advance what you are bringing so they do not plan a second dessert. A Saturday dinner does not survive a Friday delivery exception, so do not cut it to one day.
This page names no brand and earns nothing from what you decide. The bakeries that ship are listed alphabetically by state; our method is here, including what we would have to disclose if that ever changed.