The 2025 Oscars Dinner Party Recap: Epilogue
Wrapping up my ten-course Oscars dinner party… with dessert!!
It’s a bit much to devote four whole posts to one dinner party, but it reflects the amount of time that went into brainstorming, researching, and planning (the prep doc was eleven pages long). I love movies and I love cooking, and I’m very pleased when these two passions can inspire each other. To that end, I’m definitely looking for ways to collaborate with partners in hosting movie-themed dinners and dinner-themed movies as I continue to push the limits of a one-bedroom apartment.
And if you missed the preceding parts, they are linked here for your convenience!
All party photos were shot by Lai Eng. Check out her work on her website or Instagram.
Crême Brulée (The Brutalist)
Vanilla custard, burnt sugar.
AKA the crême brutalist. But beyond that pun, this classic dessert reminded me of the structural materials of László Tóth’s work: pouring the egg custard into ramekins and then softly baking it is similar to concrete, and torching the sugar on top brings to mind the forging of steel.
Simple enough to make, but to really tie this into The Brutalist, I wanted to have a cross pattern on top of the crême, just like the Van Buren Institute that Tóth designs, which prominently features a cross made with negative space. There wasn’t very much that I could Google about this idea, but I bounced some ideas off a couple dessert-making friends. (I used Mark Bittman’s recipe for the New York Times for the crême brulée itself, but ignored the part about broiling the ramekins. Just torch that sucker, it’s way easier and way more fun.)
The first attempt was with placing a tinfoil cross on top of the sugar layer before doing the brulée, but the surrounding granules melted into the foil and didn’t leave a clean outline when I peeled it off. (And I did not think through the optics of burning a cross.)
My second attempt was to use the cross as a stencil, placing it on the custard, dusting it with sugar, then carefully removing it to leave a “naked” outline. The torch still caramelized the entire surface, so that was a bust too.
Undeterred by these failures, I pressed on, much like László. The third idea worked beautifully, which was to torch the whole thing as normal, and then dusting powdered sugar on top with a mask (inverse stencil) to form that cross pattern. I felt so triumphant when I placed the crême brulée on the table, as my guests reacted with delightful shock. A bit unfortunate that the rectangular dishes made this look like a casket, but it was also kinda funny.
Wine pairing: Henriques & Henriques, 10 Year Sercial, Madeira. Harrison Van Buren humblebrags to Erzsébet about having amassed an extensive collection of the Portuguese fortified wine, so much that he could drink one bottle per day and not run out before the day he died. He reveals that his interest in architecture only came about because he needed a new hobby. Astor stocks a few bottles of very vintage madeira, dating back to the early twentieth century. While I would have been more than chuffed to have a quaff of the same wine Harrison could have had, we did not have the budget to spend over $1,000 on one bottle (though I would happily accept brand partnerships to make this a reality next time around).
Pink and Green Cake (Wicked)
Rose, raspberry, cardamom | Pandan, black sesame, coconut.
In the days leading up to these dinners, I would be asked which dish I was most excited to serve. My answer was the final course: a Wicked-themed pink and green cake. My friend Karen makes some very impressive looking cakes (peep her Instagram!) and she was happy to be both a guest and a vendor at this event. It's the only dish that I had no hand in making, so I was excited to taste it for myself!
This cake was a showstopper! Karen hadn’t even seen Wicked, but the marketing was so inescapable that it wasn’t hard to capture the vibe. Guests were invited to pick a green (Elphaba) or pink (Glinda) slice, but everyone wanted a little bit of each.
On the green side:
Pandan chiffon
Pandan brown sugar soak
Black sesame and coconut crunch
Pandan chantilly cream
On the pink side:
Rose cardamom olive oil chiffon
Rose milk soak
Raspberry lychee jam
Raspberry chantilly cream
She used this King Arthur recipe for the chiffon cake base, but prefers the one that’s part of this complicated-looking strawberry roll cake. I am not a cake baker whatsoever, so I was glad to have a friend who could make the perfect closer to this meal.
Allergy Sub: Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread
For my two guests who had an egg and a gluten allergy, respectively, their alternative sweet was a chocolate banana bread, made vegan (and egg-free) with coconut oil, oat milk, maple syrup, and a splash of cider vinegar, and gluten-free by using Bob’s Red Mill 1 for 1 AP Flour substitute. I’ve made this vegan banana bread many times before, with great success (not a single person could tell it was vegan). To be honest you can tell that this had gluten-free flour, but a lot of chocolate will make anything good.
I always top my banana breads with a generous layer of turbinado sugar before baking to form a crunchy crust. Highly suggest you do the same.
The End
After everyone had a moment to digest, we re-opened the cocktail bar and partied well into the night. (Though I couldn’t relax too much on Saturday since I was doing this all over again on Sunday. I told the folks at that second service that the prior night was the dress rehearsal.) Perhaps my favorite thing about hosting these Oscars dinners is that with each course, everyone at the table would talk about the related movie. Sometimes everyone shared an opinion (Emilia Pérez), other times the table chatter would be contentious (The Substance), and hopefully some were inspired to watch some of the films they hadn’t seen yet (I’m Still Here and Nickel Boys were the least-seen titles). While I couldn’t participate too much in those conversations, it was edifying just to listen in whenever I wasn’t focused on plating pelmeni, or tossing a salad, or cleaning up a broken glass.
Until next year’s Oscars…