Hosting a fall harvest cafe at home

Madeline May
Sep 15
8 min read

Updated: Sep 27

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Prep & bake with me for our Fall Harvest Cafe at home!

Watch on Youtube below:

Our fall harvest cafe at home

When I was growing up, the ONE thing I dreamt about was creating a home for myself filled with laughter, love, traditions, and good food. I wanted a place for all my friends to come and feel relaxed and safe. Now, I am so excited to let my inner child shine with every party we host. I let myself be as creative and chaotic as I'd like. After all, I want my friends to always know they will have an expirence at my place. When my fiance and I grow our family, I am SO excited to build traditions for our kids and their friends too. I am determined to make our house a home for us and everyone we love.

For the past month or so, I have not been very quiet about all the recipes I have been testing out for our fal cafe at home. It has been on my mind every moment of every day for weeks. There's nothing I love more than a full day of baking while listening to my favorite songs. I always love to listen to Noah Kahan while I bake. It's really my happy place. I love every part of party prep from cooking, to decorating, to planning the little details, to finally serving our guests. It's such a treat.

My shopping list:

My shopping list was long, but mostly consisted of the basics: flour, sugar, milk, and cream cheese. Over the next few weeks I will continue to roll out the specific recipes I used for each pastry and drink we made so you can create your own fall harvest coffee shop before the season ends!! I like to build out my shopping list in my notes app with the checklist option because it does not require you to have reception to check things off the list. Some stores near me tend to not have reception so this has been a great solution for me to keep organized!

Decor Links:

This was actually such an easy party to decorate for!! Lots of pumpkins and pumpkin shaped things haha!! In this link HERE, I will share all my decor, all my cookware, and everything I used to make this party come to life.

Come party with us!!

If you are more of a video person, here's a link to my full recap video for this party on Instagram. I will be sharing a Youtube vlog soon too!

My party timeline!

Here's how I stay organized instead of frantic the day of a party like this. After all, us hosts deserve to have fun too!!

Month Of:

I like to create my invites using Evite! I usually invite guests a month prior so they have time to RSVP. Thankfully, Evite also sends guests reminders a few days before the party. I also love their invite templates
A few weeks before the party, I create a Canva presentation visionboard with what I will be serving, tablescape ideas, and decor ideas. This really helps me get excited and envision the party.
I begin shopping for decor!!

Week of:

I create my shopping list, finalize decor, finalize menu items, and check in with guests who have not yet RSVP'd
I outsouced a cleaner for our home and this has made a huge difference. No more deep cleaning the home on our own before guests arrive.

Two days before:

Two days before I will shop for all my ingredients
I will also decorate our home and make sure everything looks exactly as envisioned

Day Before:

For this party, I baked all my baked goods the day before. I prepped my cookie dough and kept it in the fridge until the day of the party though. This helped me feel so stress free the day of the party!
My fiancé and I also cleaned the kitchen afterwards of course!

Day of:

I pick up all my florals the morning of a party
I will clean anything else that needs to be clean, make sure we have all our printables and menu signs, and then I will light all candles, and set the mood with music
I prepped my charcuterie board morning of as well so it did not dry out in the fridge
I will set the table about 30 mins before guests arrive
I will pop the cookies in the oven and anything else that needs to be warmed about 10 minutes before guests arrive

The tablescape & decor:

I kept the tablescape and decor pretty simple for this coffee shop party! If you are new to hosting, a coffee shop party is a great option because it's pretty low lift! You should grab some florals, a cute banner (I found mine at an antique shop), some mismatched china, and a few pumpkins. For a party like this, lighting and music is everything. I added candles, lamps, and used my Alexa to play music. On the TV, I played silent Charlie Brown thanksgiving.

My coffee station decor:

My coffee station is my favorite part of my home! I love switching out the decor here for the holidays and it's just the perfect spot for us to make coffee every morning! I use an antique hutch to store our coffee, added some shelving, and now it's the perfect coffee station. We don't have a huge kitchen, so I love how this is functional AND decorative! I will link everything I used to build out this coffee station here

I love how cozy this coffee station has made our home!

I used brown paper to make our coffee shop menu! I added a brown velvet ribbon on top as a cute fall touch as well!

I think the details really make the party! I love love love to decorate and create an expirence for guests where everywhere they look, they see something exciting. Oh my goodness, this is getting me SO excited for holiday hosting!!!!

What's on the menu?

Food: Brioche Blueberry Buns

My goodness, these blueberry brioche buns are always SUCH a hit!! They are bakery style, simple to make, and quite impressive! I'll add my recipe for these here.

Pro tip: I love to bake these and wait for the blueberries to pop and become a beautiful fig color. Once the buns are cooled, I add fresh blueberries on top for a variety in color and taste!! Then, I mix together powdered sugar and water to make a quick glaze that will harden and really elevate these buns!!

I love these because they look a little messy! I think a little mess always brings out the joy inside of me haha!

I served the blueberry buns on a wood and marble board

Biscoff Apple Crumble Cheesecake:

This was the STAR of the party!! It had made 12 slices, and at the end of the party we had two slices left! This was a favorite among all of our guests. It was creamy, crunchy, and gooey! So perfect for our cozy coffee shop party. The recipe for this cheesecake is here

Soon, I am going to test out a similar cheesecake recipe with pears! I think a caramelized pear cheesecake could be sooo delish. I will probably be making the Apple Crumble Cheesecake for Thanksgiving though. Pro tip: I added extra gooey caramelized apples to my cheesecake. The caramel dripped through the pan a lot, and right on to the extra baking dish I added to the bottom of the oven. At first, this freaked me out! I thought I was going to get a soggy cheesecake, but nope! Cheesecake is extra forgiving and the texture was incredibleeeeee! It was extra gooey and the crust was still crisp. Extra caramelized apples it is!! I am starting to learn baking is a lot more forgiving than we give it credit for.

Another moment for the cheesecake:

I love how the apples created a ooey gooey layer ughhh!! This cheesecake is everything to me!!!!

"Take what you need teabag shortbread cookies"

Recipe on these here! But it is very simple!

I added positive affirmations on all of these cookies and friends could take what they felt they needed!

I served the cookies on a wooden board!

Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I will share my recipe for these soon too! No cafe is complete without the chunkiest, chocolate chip, cookies!

Pro tip: Put these in the oven 15 mins before guests come so they can stay warm! I also told all my guests they could reheat whatever they wanted to in the oven!

I opted to make these before guests came because 15 mins of prep time did not sound stressful! I kept the cookie dough in an airtight container overnight to keep it moist.

Pumpkin Chai Cinnamon Rolls:

These are my FAVORITE to make! Also, I have no clue how I baked all of this in one day! Wow...

The recipe for these cinnamon rolls is here

These turned out so tasty, moist, and perfect for the season!

Pro tip: Don't be like me! Frost these the morning of instead. It is a bit difficult to get the frosting back to its incredible texture once you put it in the fridge. Not a big deal at all, but just a pro tip!

I kept these cinnamon rolls soooo chunky! I wanted them to be messy, stuffed, and bakery-style. Almost like a pumpkin cinnamon roll casserole! I LOVE how it turned out. If you'd like, you can separate them in two dishes instead. But I prefer this slightly chaotic look. To me it feels more cozy.

Apple, Turkey, And Brie Sandwiches!

My fiance made these!! He's the sandwich guy. Let me know if you would like a recipe. These were a huge hit. I was sure I wanted a savory option to balance out all our sweets and offer our friends something that felt more like a lunch as well.

He assembled these and popped them in the oven before guests came! These sandwiches were simple and only took about ten mins to make. The melty brie makes for a cozy and tasty sandwich.

You can add arugula to these sandwiches too!

Fall harvest charcuterie board!

I always love to create a charcuterie board. Guests tend to love these grazing boards as well. It's not very cafe - but I know what my people love. To make it match the season, I made a board with apples, brie, salami, and mini toasts! Super simple and tasty!

Drinks!

I used Canva to create these drink menus and then printed them out at Staples! It's always a little bit awkward for the first guest who arrives and I enjoyed being able to hand them a little menu to fill out so they could feel comfortable and taken care of immediately! This also helped our guests get excited about the menu and it helped my fiance, our barista, to keep organized instead of having to memorize all orders!

Pro tip: Always offer milk preferences to accomadate dietary restrictions. This time, I did not have any guests with restrictions, so all baked goods were made with regular flour and milk. However, I always keep recipes in my back pocket to accomadate certain needs.

Guests got to write their names down and circle their order preferences!

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup

My fiance made this syrup for all of our festive drinks!

Pumpkin Cold Foam Matcha (option for maple cold foam)

For this party, we tried to offer a variety of drinks for those who don't love coffee! The matcha was such a hit! We topped all the drinks with pumpkin pie spice! This was just matcha, milk, our homemade pumpkin syrup, and a cold foam of your choice!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

We had a hot and cold version of all of our drinks! Pictured above is the iced version. However, we used all of our favorite festive fall mugs for the hot version of these drinks!! I am now realizing that I need to update my blog with SO many recipes! As I add more in, I will link them here for you!