The Ultimate Butter Themed Party —A Toast Dinner

If you are looking for the most fun and delicious butter themed party you have ever hosted, this is it. Toast for dinner sounds almost too simple, but when you build a gorgeous compound butter grazing table down the centre of your dining room, dress your guests in butter yellow, and use real baguettes as candle holders, it becomes one of the most joyful and memorable dinner parties you will ever throw. I have hosted this party multiple times and it never gets old.

Jump to:

• Quick Look
• Why You Will Love This Butter Themed Party
• The Best Dinner Party You Have Never Tried
• YouTube Video of Butter /Toast Party
• Free Printable Butter Party Invitations
• The Butter Themed Party Table
• The Baguette Candle Holders and Butter Candle
• The Compound Butters -The Star of the Show
• The House Recommendations Menu Card
• The Full Toppings Spread
• The Drinks
• Don't Blow A Fuse
• The Party Favors
• Frequently Asked Questions
• More Party Ideas You'll Love

The Best Dinner Party You Have Never Tried

I served toast for dinner. That was the whole menu. Just toast. And nobody wanted to leave.

The idea for a toast party came to me years ago when I realized that great bread and really good butter might be one of life's most underrated pleasures.

Why not build an entire dinner party around that? Think of it like a fondue party, but better. Everyone gathers around the table, the toasters are going, and the whole evening is spent building incredible toast and butter combinations and sharing their favourites.

This most recent version is the most elevated and beautiful iteration I have done and it earned its name as the ultimate butter themed party. The secret upgrade is homemade compound butter. Instead of plain butter on the table we made six fully flavored compound butters in beautiful labeled jars. The butter was the undisputed star of the evening.  

If this kind of interactive grazing-style entertaining speaks to you, you will love our butter board recipe which uses many of the same compound butters as a stunning appetizer spread. Our compound butter recipes guide covers all six butters we made for this party with tested recipes and make-ahead timelines. And if you love a themed dinner party format you might also enjoy our circus themed dinner party for a more theatrical gathering.

Free Printable Butter Party Invitations

The invite for this butter themed party writes itself.

"We are celebrating the simple pleasures with a night of toast, and you are invited to break bread with us - because everything is butter with you. Wear yellow, bring your toaster, and bring your favourite sliced bread."

A few things worth noting about the invite:

• Asking guests to bring their favourite sliced bread means everyone has a stake in the menu and creates a fun conversation starter as they arrive.
• The dress code does so much work for you. Asking guests to wear yellow means your table is surrounded by warm golden colour that photographs beautifully and immediately creates a cohesive party atmosphere.
• "Bring your toaster" is the most intriguing three words you can put on an invitation. Guests arrive already curious and excited about what is going to happen.

We designed matching gingham menu cards, a French-style butter label for the party favors, and favor tags to complete the printable set. Grab our free editable invites, menu, and favor tags. Subscribe below and find it in our Free Resource Library for subscribers, and we'll send you the password for access immediately.

The Butter Themed Party Table

The table for this party is one of the most satisfying things to build and style. Here is exactly how we put it together.

• The Tablecloth: A white and yellow striped tablecloth gives the whole table a warm, charming, slightly bistro-adjacent feel that perfectly suits the bread and butter theme.
• The Grazing Runner: We laid foil down the centre of the table and covered it with parchment paper to create one long continuous grazing surface. All the food, jars, and toppings sit directly on the parchment which looks beautiful, keeps the table protected, and makes cleanup much easier.
• The Toasters: Each guest brings their own toaster which we space out along the table. Two toasters at each end keeps the whole centre clear for food. For a larger group one in the middle works well too.
• Place settings: Each guest gets a small bamboo cutting board as their plate, napkin, knife, and a glass with a butter yellow bow tied on it.
• Menu Card: We gave everyone a house recommendations menu card printed double-sided, with savory suggestions on one side and sweets on the other, to help get everyone started.
• The butter placards: For each guest we used a letter mold to spell out their name in butter and place it onto a slice of bread. To make the names press softened butter in to the letter molds, then place in the freezer until frozen and pop out. Store in the freezer until your ready to use, then transfer to each slice of bread.
• The Flowers: Instead of vases, we tucked yellow flowers throughout the grazing spread. Do look for flowers that are edible, like the double tulips and carnations that we used.
• Candles: To add some candle light to our table, we used baguette candle holders and real butter candle. More details below.

The Baguette Candle Holders and Butter Candle

These two details added so much fun and whimsy to our butter themed party and they are both so easy to make.

• Baguette Candle Holders: Cut your baguette to create sections that are slightly different heights. Then push a taper candle directly into each section of baguette and place them in groupings along the table. The reaction when guests notice them is exactly what you hope for. They are charming, slightly absurd in the best way, and completely on theme.
• Butter Candle: Tie a piece of cotton kitchen string (food safe) onto a knife or chopstick and cut it to fit the length of a small paper cup, or paper cupcake holder. Pour melted butter into the small paper cup and rest the chopstick over the edge to hold the wick in the middle. Let it set in the fridge. Hollow out a small loaf of bread or dinner roll just enough to nestle the butter candle inside. When you light it at the start of the evening a melted butter pool forms around the wick and guests can tear pieces of the bread and dip them directly into the warm melted butter. This candle was a genuinely beautiful and whimsical centrepiece moment that got so many comments.

The Compound Butters -The Star of the Show

This is the element that elevates this from a fun quirky dinner into something genuinely extraordinary and makes it the ultimate butter themed party. Six homemade compound butters presented in beautiful labeled jars, each one a different flavour, each one a different colour.

Together on the table they are stunning. Pale pink strawberry butter, golden honey butter, dark chocolate butter, golden jalapeño honey butter, rustic roasted garlic butter, and herb flecked garlic herb butter. All with handwritten yellow cardstock labels and little clothespin tags.

Savoury butters:

• Roasted Garlic Butter - A full head of garlic roasted until deeply caramelised and golden, then mashed into salted butter. Sweet, rich, and extraordinary on almost every savoury toast combination.
• Garlic Herb Compound Butter - Fresh garlic, flat leaf parsley, chives, and thyme mixed into salted butter. Bright, fresh, and the perfect base for the steak and bruschetta toasts.
• Jalapeno Honey Butter - Fresh jalapeño, honey, and salted butter. The sweet heat combination that surprised everyone and disappeared fastest.

Sweet butters:

• Strawberry Butter - Fresh strawberries cooked to a thick jammy reduction, folded into whipped butter with maple syrup. Pale pink, light, and fluffy.
• Whipped Honey Butter - Just salted butter and creamed honey whipped to a cloud-like texture. Simple, golden, and the first thing everyone reached for all evening.
• Chocolate Butter - Melted semi-sweet chocolate and bloomed cocoa whipped into salted butter. Rich, smooth, and deeply chocolatey without being too sweet.

All six butters can be made a few days ahead and stored in sealed jars in the refrigerator. This is the biggest hosting advantage of building a party around compound butter, the most impressive element is completely done before party day.

The House Recommendations Menu Card

One of the most important practical elements of a butter themed toast party is the house recommendations card at each place setting. Without some guidance guests can feel overwhelmed by the options. The double-sided card solves this completely - savoury suggestions on one side, sweet on the other.

Once guests work through a few recommendations they naturally start experimenting and inventing their own combinations. By the end of the evening people were calling out their favourite discoveries across the table.

Savoury recommendations:

• The Steak - garlic and herb butter, marinated flank steak, mixed greens, balsamic glaze. Consistently the most popular toast of the evening.
• The Mushroom - Boursin cheese, sautéed mushrooms. A close second in popularity.
• The Pomodoro - roasted garlic butter, fresh mozzarella, homemade tomato jam, flaky sea salt.
• The Avocado - roasted garlic butter, avocado, chili oil, everything bagel seasoning. Also great with eggs.
• The Sweet Heat - jalapeño honey butter, avocado, bacon.
• The Goat - goat's cheese, caramelized onion jam.
• The BLT - bacon, lettuce, fresh tomato, mayo.
• The Breakfast - scrambled eggs, bacon, cheddar, tomato jam.
• The Frenchie - French butter, thinly sliced radishes. More on the French butter story below.

Sweet recommendations:

• The Strawberry - strawberry butter, fresh strawberries, honey drizzle.
• The Honey - whipped honey butter, honeycomb, flaky sea salt.
• The Dubai - chocolate butter, pistachio cream, chopped pistachios. A nod to the viral Dubai chocolate trend.
• The Monkey - peanut butter, banana slices, honey drizzle.
• The Cornbread - toasted cornbread, whipped honey butter, blueberry jam.
• Cinnamon Toast - whipped honey butter, cinnamon sugar.

A note from experience: guests eat five to seven rounds of savoury toast and maybe one or two rounds of sweet. Keep the sweet side lighter than you think you need and invest your effort in the savoury toppings.

The Full Toppings Spread

Beyond what is in the house recommendations, here is everything we put on the grazing table. You do not need all of this. Choose what appeals to you and your group. Leftovers from jars and condiments are easy to use up so there is no real waste in being generous.

Savoury Toppings

• roasted garlic butter
• garlic and herb butter
• jalapeno honey butter
• flank steak slices
• sautéed mushrooms
• hard boiled eggs
• bacon
• Boursin cheese
• goat's cheese
• cheddar cheese
• fresh mozzarella cheese or burrata
• bruschetta topping
• tomato jam
• avocado slices
• mixed greens
• caramelized onion jam
• roasted tomatoes
• mayo
• ketchup
• chili oil
• hot honey
• balsamic glaze
• everything bagel seasoning
• flaky sea salt and pepper

Sweet Toppings 

• whipped honey butter
• chocolate butter
• strawberry butter
• peanut butter
• pistachio cream
• hazelnut creme, or Nutella
• creamed honey and honeycomb
• fresh strawberries
• banana slices
• blueberry jam
• raspberry jam
• strawberry rhubarb jam
• cinnamon sugar
• toasted pistachios

The Bread Selection

We asked our guests to each bring their favourite bread. But we also wanted to have a variety of breads so we picked up some too. Two guest brought sourdough, and one brought French bread, so we were glad we had a few other options, admittedly though, we had too much bread.

• sourdough bread
• French bread
• whole grain oat bread
• baguette
• ciabatta bread
• brioche bread
• cornbread
• scones

The Drinks

We had a pitcher of homemade punch ready as the non-alcoholic option - frozen lemonade concentrate, Sprite, and lemon slices which sounds almost too easy, and it got more comments than anything else.

A note for hosts: plan your punch for the colour palette if you can. We accidentally bought pink lemonade instead of regular and our vision of the beautiful butter yellow punch with fresh lemon slices garnishing became bright pink instead. Whoops. Our guests responded by saying "we can pretend it's yellow" and we all laughed about it for the rest of the evening. Sometimes the mistakes become the best moments.

Don't Blow A Fuse

The most important practical tip for hosting a toast party and the one I learned the hard way years ago.

Toasters draw significant power. Multiple toasters on the same circuit will blow a fuse on your first round of toast. The solution is simple, run extension cords from each toaster to different outlets in different rooms so each toaster draws from its own circuit. You can then run them all simultaneously without any power issues.

Since everyone is seated at the table there are no tripping hazards. Just tuck the cords safely when the evening is done.

A toaster oven is a wonderful optional addition. It gives guests the option to melt cheese on their toast which is always popular.

The Party Favors

We sent each guest home with three homemade compound butters wrapped in parchment paper, or in a mason jar, with our own handmade French-style label reading La Vie est une Fête - Beurre Artisanal in a script font -which means "Life is a Party". We wrote the name of each butter by hand underneath in Sharpie. Each bundle was tied with twine and thank you tag reading "Everything is butter with you." Will it was meant to, but I forgot to add the favor tag in the rush of getting ready. You can grab it in our free resource library and add it to yours at your own butter party.

The story behind the label: we spent one day in France on a river cruise last year and I made a pilgrimage to a grocery store specifically to buy French butter. I brought a few pounds home in my suitcase, shared most of it with the people I love, and saved the last portion for a special moment. This party was that moment.

I thought it would be fun to send guests home with our own homemade butters wrapped to look like the beautiful, famous French butter from Paris. It was the perfect ending to a perfect evening.

We don't always get to Paris. But we can always make our own version of beautiful.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Party Ideas You'll Love

If you try this butter themed party or any other party ideas on my blog please let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting today!