Christmas Tree Brownies - Two Ways – Summer Hill Pantry

Christmas Tree Brownies - Two Ways

I love Brownies at Christmas, or more accurately at any time. These are easy, delicious and really fun to decorate and then eat.

 Flat Christmas Tree Brownies with icing garland and real fruit decorations

You will need:

1 x 380gm Summer Hill Pantry Chocolate Brownie mix

200gm Chocolate – you can use dark or milk or plant based options

250gm butter or vegan butter

4 eggs or egg replacer

1/2 cup of boiling water

 

Method:

Prepare brownie mix for both variations using the method below;

Set your oven to 180C (160C fan forced).

In a bowl whisk eggs together until blended.

Melt the butter in a heatproof dish. Break or chop the chocolate into small pieces while the butter is melting.

Add the chocolate to the melted butter and stir until thoroughly melted and combined and you have a glossy dark chocolatey mix. Add eggs to the chocolate and mix until combined.

Gently fold in 380gm Summer Hill Pantry Brownie Mix until combined. Add half a cup of boiling water and mix thoroughly. DO NOT add the water until the mix is combined or you will cook the eggs!

Allow the mix to sit for 5 mins.

Meanwhile prepare your pans, for triangular trees lay baking paper or a reusable baking sheet on your sheet pan. For standing trees, grease a mini muffin tin.

Pour mix into sheet pan or muffin tin and tap on surface to release any air bubbles and create a nice smooth top.

For tray bake – 30-35 mins

For muffins – approx 10-12 mins

Check with a thermometer or a skewer. They are done when the skewer comes out clean or with a crumb here and there.

Remove and allow to cool completely before decorating.

While the brownies are cooling, mix your icing or buttercream.

 

To decorate;

FLAT TREES

You’ll need;

  • Icing
  • Natural Colouring
  • Fruits or sweets for decorating

 

Slice triangle shaped ‘trees’ from the tray bake. The triangles should not be right angled triangles and should look like the diagram. You will have some sacrificial pieces on each edge which are perfect for snacking on while you decorate.

Chocolate Brownie Tree cutting guide

We mixed up some basic buttercream icing, see link here to perfect buttercream icing.

We used Summer Hill Pantry Fruit Sparkles - Passionfruit with Green Spirulina to make the green coloured buttercream. Our Fruit Sparkles are made using real fruit juice dried super low and slow and don’t have any preservatives so they are perfect for decorating. Because they are naturally coloured and have no chemicals or nasty additives, it will not be as bright as artificial chemical food colouring drops or gels.

 

A round tip piping nozzle is all you need for this simple style.

Start at the bottom corner of the triangle and run your icing garland from edge to edge until you reach the top of the tree.

We used Strawberry Chomp 100% real Fruit Sprinkles for our ‘baubles’ but you could try any of our varieties to work with your colour scheme. Just have fun, use whatever you have to hand to decorate. This is also a great activity for your little ones to help with.

 

STANDING TREES

You’ll need:

  • Icing
  • Natural food colouring
  • Fruits or sweets for decorations
  • Strawberries
  • Piping bag
  • Star piping tip

 

Slice the stalk and leaves off the top of the strawberry making sure the cut is straight and across the widest part of the strawberry. This will function as the height and stability for your tree, so do your best to make sure the cut is straight otherwise you’ll end up with a wonky tree. Although we love a wonky tree, see pics for evidence!

 

Iced Christmas trees

If your muffins are domed, you may want to slice the top off so it’s a little more stable for icing.

This time you’ll need a star tip, we used an 8 point. As you can see ours is far from beautiful but we had a lot of fun making these.

Start with a dab of icing on top of your muffin, place the flat end of the strawberry onto the dab. This will dry and create the shape of your tree.

Start piping your icing stars around the base of the ‘tree’ where the strawberry meets the muffin. Pull your icing upwards so that it resembles tree branches. Continue piping around the strawberry moving upwards towards the small tip of the strawberry. Go back and fill in any holes.

We used Raspberry Crush 100% real Fruit Sprinkles for our ‘baubles’ and some sprinkles but again you can use whatever you’d like or have available here. Get the kids to help with decorating.

Top with a star.

Eat as many as you want!

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