I’m ready to reveal the final piece from last week’s kiln opening —  and as you might expect, I’ve saved the best for last! My family likes to have easy dinners on Friday nights, because we’re all pretty tired by the end of the week and no one feels like cooking anything elaborate. One of our favorite Friday night dinners is charcuterie — meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, and bread or crackers. I’ve been thinking about ways to add some fun to these dinners, and came up with some wonderful concepts for ceramic charcuterie platters. 

My leaf-shaped charcuterie boards make it easy to create beautiful arrangements of key ingredients, but I also wanted to make something to hold toasted baguette slices and crackers, because let’s face it, what’s charcuterie without something to put it on? While I was searching for ideas, I came across a silverplated, wedge-shaped tray that looked as though it could house a variety of breads — baguettes, Italian bread, breadsticks, focaccia wedges, and yes, even crackers. The problem, of course, is that silverplated pieces require a bit more care than I would want to deal with on a weekly basis.

One of the reasons I love stoneware dishes is that you can put them in the dishwasher. So, I set out to develop a ceramic version that would be just as elegant and grand as the silverplated original I saw on eBay, but easier to care for. The first hurdle was figuring out a form to mold the shape around, because one of the things I loved about the silverplated piece was that it sits on two raised legs on either side so that the base “floats” above the table. I would need a triangular form to build it around, since the legs wouldn’t be able to support the tray while the clay was wet.

I found an old triangular cake mold and used it to pour a plaster mold. Once that was dry and cleaned up, I started working on the paper templates to cut out the pieces I would need to build the tray from a clay slab. The first attempt ended up being recycled because (as usual) I needed to make adjustments to each section as I put it together. Once I adjusted the paper templates, I started work on building a prototype, which you can see in the photo gallery below (I have weekly updates posted on my Facebook page if you want more details on the build process).

To say I’m over the moon with how this piece came out is an understatement. This finished piece is drop-dead gorgeous! In fact, someone at my pottery studio said it wasn’t just a bread tray — it was a bread throne! Everything works on this: the gorgeous oak leaf damask texture, which is so beautifully brought out by the way the glaze breaks blue and gold all over. All the little details, from the seashell ornaments on all four sides, to the beautiful braided borders on the long sides, to the scalloped edging along the top. I will be making more of these, I promise!

You can click on any photo to pause the gallery. Enjoy!