Christmas Tree Brownies Recipe

These Christmas Tree Brownies look absolutely adorable. They are extremely easy to make and decorate using a bought brownie mix, icing and some sprinkles.

If you, like me – are not the world’s best decorator then these are perfect to make. I find decorating Christmas cookies really hard work. My hands aren’t real steady at the best of times so combine that with the firm icing needed to set properly, I usually make a bit of a mess and that’s after I have literally spent hours of back breaking, neck-straining work decorating trays of cookies just to watch them get devoured in minutes. Not to mention all the work involved in chilling dough, rolling it out, cutting out the shapes…

Of course you can totally make your own favorite brownie recipe but if you are pressed for time (and who isn’t at Christmas) then why not take a few short-cuts. The same applies to the icing. I just used Betty Crocker vanilla icing, only 1/3 of the container is needed but I just popped the rest into the fridge to use another time.

Brownies are notoriously a little bit sticky (which is, of course why they are so good) so you will have to make sure these are really cold before trying to cut them to end up with good shapes. I put mine in the freezer in the pan for over an hour before attempting to cut them.

These would also look great with little silver or gold balls or stars if you can find them.

This recipe is adapted from Onelittleproject.com

Ingredients:

One packet brownie mix

Ready-made vanilla frosting (Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines)
Peppermint essence (optional)

Green food colouring

Sprinkles to decorate

3-4 candy canes

 

Method: 

Bake the brownies according to the directions on the packet in a square baking dish lined with non-stick baking paper. Leave the brownies to cool completely – I put the whole pan in the freezer for an hour so they were easier to cut.

Cut the brownies into three even rows. Then you should be able to get around four or five good triangle shapes out of each row, shaving off an edge here or there on the outside pieces (but you can just snack on those while you’re decorating).

Spoon about 1/3 out of the can of icing into a small bowl and tint with green food colouring. I use Wilton gel food colouring so it only needed a few drops. Then add a few drops of peppermint essence to taste.

Snap the candy canes into three or four pieces and add them to the base of the trees for the trunks.

In a piping bag with a small round tip (or just use a zip-lock bag with an end cut out if you don’t have one), fill the bag with the icing and decorate the trees and add your favorite sprinkles to finish off.

Carolyn started her blog Pinkpostitnote.com just over a year ago as a way to deal with her obsession of trying new recipes from the copious collection of cookbooks that she owns (and continues to buy). She is particularly fond of “man” food, both cooking it and eating it. She will happily elbow people out of the road at the sight, sound and smell of a pulled pork burger. When she’s not lying awake at 5am wondering if she should buy chooks and a cow to deal with the constant need for eggs and butter, she’s dealing with all the paperwork associated with owning a bunch of tip trucks and her favorite time of the day is wine five o-clock.