1. Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese accoutrements:
Cinnamon rolls
Carrot cake
Red velvet cake
Doughnuts and doughnut holes
Brownies
Apple and cherry pie
Ginger cookies
Store-bought pastries like Entenmann's
Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries
2. Nutella
Nutella accoutrements:
Crepes
Bananas, strawberries, apples
Big marshmallows
Rice Krispie treats
Croissants and other pastries
Doughnuts and doughnut holes
Ice cream and ice cream cones
3. Maple Syrup
Maple syrup accoutrements:
Waffles
Fried chicken
Scrambled eggs (or, if you are brave, serve the eggs like this)
Pancakes
Biscuits
Bacon (To form roses, just roll them up, put swirl-side up in a muffin tin, and bake at 375º until they look done, about 20 minutes.)
4. Ketchup
Ketchup accoutrements:
Burgers
Sliders
French fries
Tater tots
Chicken nuggets
Corn dogs
Scrambled eggs
5. Nacho Cheese
Nacho cheese accoutrements:
Soft pretzels
Chips
Hot dogs
Corn dogs
Apple pie
Apple slices
(We also used burritos and tacos; however, if you do this, pieces of meat or lettuce will probably fall out and run through the fountain for the duration of your party, which is kind of gross. We'll leave that up to you.)
Step 1: PROCURE A PARTY FOUNTAIN.
We used the 18" Sephra Classic Home Fondue Fountain, which you can easily find online for about $100. It worked well and was surprisingly easy to clean.
Step 2: CHOOSE A DELICIOUS LIQUID TO RUN THROUGH IT.
Making a party fountain is all about viscosity (finding the right thickness of the liquid so it will flow freely and triumphantly through your fountain levels). This usually requires watering the liquid down and/or thinning it out with veg oil. The easiest, most smooth-flowing of the fountains we constructed was definitely the nacho cheese fountain. The most finicky was the maple syrup, largely because it was already too thin and splattered all over the place, so we had to thicken it with corn syrup.
All of the ideas above were awesome. Here are some more:
Melted butter: lobster, crab, shrimp, steak
BBQ sauce: ribs, chicken skewers, burgers
Gravy: biscuits, mashed potato balls, chicken fried steak
Hollandaise: basically anything
You need about 6 lbs. (96 oz.) of cheese, or chocolate, or frosting, or whatever.
Step 3: HEAT UP THE LIQUID, THEN WATER IT DOWN.
Turn on the heat button in your party fountain too. Put the liquid in a large stockpot over low heat. As the liquid heats, add about a cup of water and/or vegetable oil, whatever makes sense for the flavor you're working with (unless you are using maple syrup, in which case you want to add a cup of corn syrup), and whisk. The fountain comes with a handy funnel that helps you get the right viscosity (thickness) for your liquid. Read the directions for your specific fountain and use the funnel until you've thinned the liquid enough. It takes some practice, so you might do a test run before your party and write down the ratio.
Having some trouble? So did we at first. Here are tips.
• If your fountain stream isn't a solid curtain, it may be because the fountain itself isn't level and you need to prop up one of the legs a little bit.
• If the liquid is too thick but you already added it to the fountain, the best place to pour in water is down into the tube at the top.
• If the liquid is too thin but you already added it to the fountain, heat more chocolate/cheese/ketchup/etc., but with much less water in it this time, then pour it down into the tube at the top of the fountain.
Step 4: SET OUT THE SNACKS FOR DIPPIN.
Suggestions are above. Also: You need skewers, tongs, plates, napkins — things that help people not contaminate the fountain. Choose accoutrement that DO NOT have small chunks of meat or things in them that will spill out into the fountain. For example: The tacos were a bad idea.
Step 5: EAT.
Photographs by Macey Foronda. Art direction by John Gara. Food styling by Emily Fleischaker.