New Year's Eve Party Desserts and Snacks in Bangalore

A New Year's Eve house party is a long evening. People arrive at eight, eat something at ten, and are still standing in the kitchen at half past midnight looking for one more thing to eat. That's what makes the food hard to plan. It isn't one meal. It's a slow graze with a cake in the middle.

Here's how to plan the sweet and savoury side of 31 December without running out, or throwing half of it away on the 1st.

Work out the shape of the evening

Before you count anything, decide which kind of party it is.

• Dinner, then midnight. You're cooking or ordering a proper meal. Snacks are for the first hour, and the cake is for midnight.
• Grazing all night. No sit-down meal. Snacks are the dinner, so you'll need a lot more of them.
• Late arrivals. Friends coming on from another party at eleven. They'll want cake and something savoury, and not much else.

Most house parties are a mix of the first and the third.

How much to order per guest

These are rough rules of thumb from hosting, not promises. Adjust for your crowd.

• Dessert: one portion per guest, where a portion is a slice, a jar or a cupcake. Then add about a quarter again, because midnight brings a second round.
• Savoury, if there's dinner: two or three small pieces each, for the first hour with drinks.
• Savoury, if there isn't: a lot more, and some real food as well. Puffs and rolls are good company for a meal, but they aren't one.

For the cake itself, our cake size guide has the slices-per-kilo maths. After a big dinner and a few drinks, slices get thinner, so you can err on the smaller side.

Mix the cake with other things

One big cake isn't the best way to feed a New Year's crowd. Half the room will want a slice at midnight. The rest will want something at 12:40, when the cake has been cut up and left out.

A better mix:

• A cake for the countdown. A 500g or 1kg cake is enough for the moment and the photos. The Blackforest comes in both sizes, and 1kg is ₹2,000.
• Individual desserts for grazing. Dessert jars don't need cutting or plates. A set of four assorted Dessert Shots is ₹400, or single 100ml shots are ₹100 each. Cupcakes come in boxes of four, from ₹180 to ₹300 a box.
• Savoury bites. Our Bitesize Puffs are eight to a box for ₹220, with onion, or chicken for ₹20 more. From Snacks and Bites, the Wholewheat Garlic Cheese Toast (four for ₹200) and Wholewheat Spinach Cheese Rolls (four for ₹220) sit well next to drinks.

Keep veg and non-veg on separate plates, and label them. By eleven, nobody remembers which tray was which.

A worked example

Sixteen adults, dinner at home at ten, cake at midnight, a few people staying late.

• Midnight: a 1kg Blackforest. Cut thin after dinner, that's twelve or so slices.
• For those who skip cake, and the second round: two sets of Dessert Shots, which is eight shots.
• With drinks, before dinner: three boxes of Bitesize Puffs and two boxes of Garlic Cheese Toast. That's 32 pieces, two each, which is right when dinner is coming.

That's ₹3,860 before delivery, and very little left on the 1st.

Order ahead, and check the calendar

31 December falls on a Thursday this year. Our usual rule is that menu orders placed before 12 noon reach you the same evening. For a party that matters, don't leave it to the morning of the 31st. Order a few days ahead, so there's time to sort out anything that needs sorting.

• Mondays: we're normally closed on Mondays, and 28 December is one. If you want to sort things out early in the week, do it on Sunday or Tuesday.
• Custom cakes: a cake with a design, a particular weight or tiers needs a few days' notice on any week. In the last week of December, give it more.
• Holiday week: confirm your delivery date when you order, as you would with any bakery that week.

Delivery on a busy evening

Traffic across Bengaluru on New Year's Eve is rarely light, and it builds early. Plan around it.

• Take the afternoon slot. Menu deliveries arrive between 4 and 5 PM, which is ideal. The cake has hours in the fridge before midnight.
• Name a receiver. If the host is out collecting drinks, put the name and number of whoever's home on the order.
• Or collect it. Pickup from our bakehouse in Kasavanahalli, off Sarjapur Road, is free, and the box travels flat on your car floor.
• Far side of the city? Order a day ahead. Our delivery areas page has the details. The delivery charge is shown at checkout.

When it arrives, cream cakes and dessert jars go straight into the fridge. Puffs are best warmed for a few minutes in a hot oven or an air fryer just before serving.

The short version

Decide the shape of the evening. Plan one dessert and a bit per guest, a cake for midnight and something individual for the stragglers. Order a few days early, avoid the Monday, and take the afternoon delivery slot. Then enjoy the countdown.