Strawberry Themed Engagement Party

A good family friend of mine asked me to bake for her son's engagement party that she was hosting at her house.  Since it was the beginning of summer she thought it would be a great idea to take advantage of the local strawberries and asked me to bake her chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry tarts, strawberry shortcakes and strawberry shortbread cookies. 

For the chocolate covered strawberries, I thought it would be a cute idea to decorate the strawberries in outfits of chocolate covered wedding dresses and tuxedos.  I used semisweet chocolate for the tuxedo jackets and white candy coating for the wedding dresses.

For the shortbread cookies, I got the idea from the Pioneer Woman for this recipe.  I thought the combination of shortbread, creamcheese, and strawberries was perfect for a light and sweet simple dessert. I decided to use a flower shaped cookie cutter and sprinkled the dessert with raw sugar to make it look more prettier.

The tarts were very fun to make and I used this vanilla pudding recipe that turned out really well.  I didn't have any vanilla beans so I added an extra 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla to the recipe and used 2% milk.  I made the pudding the day before assembling and let it sit in the fridge overnight so it was extra vanilla tasting.  Hope you enjoyed all the strawberry treats, happy baking!