Christmas Tree Brownies
A another great way to decorate brownies at Christmas, is to make these adorable Christmas trees. When I saw a picture of these on Pinterest and just had to make them myself and I loved the results. I made these using my classic brownie recipe which you can find here that produces a classic chocolate brownie that's perfect for decorating.
To decorate the tree I like to use melted white chocolate with green food colouring paste added. I don't rate the food colouring that you buy often in the supermarket because you need to add quite a lot to get the desired colour and it messes with the chocolate. You can buy really great food colouring gels or paste online or in specialist cookshops and they aren't expensive and they last a long time so it's worth seeking them out if you can. I think you can also use green candy melts and get good results but I think white chocolate works best as it’s so delicious. You need roughly 300g white chocolate to decorate a whole batch of trees.
To make the string of lights, use glace icing with black food colouring (which is simply a classic icing using powdered sugar and water) or you could use one of the black icing pens you buy in the supermarket. I wanted my lights to look like the colourful American bulbs that I saw on a new Netflix TV showso used these tiny candy coloured chocolates I bought in Sainsbury's, I think that mini Smarties would work well here too. For the decorations on the tree, you could use any sprinkles you have, there are some great Christmas ones in most of the major supermarkets. Also, some amazing cake websites that sell unbelievable sprinkles, a great place to start is here.
INGREDIENTS
1 Batch of brownies
250g White Chocolate
Green Food colouring
Black icing pen OR thin black liqorish OR black glace icing in a piping bag with a small tip
Silver balls, gold stars or any other festive sprinkles you like
Mini smarties or chocolates like these to create coloured ‘lights’
Yellow smarties, stars or something to top your tree
Cut your big brownie square in half and then cut your Christmas trees. You could also cook the brownie in a regular circular cake pan and cut it like a pizza.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently boiling water, taking care that the water doesn’t touch the bowl. When it’s fully melted add in the food colouring a little at a time until you get your desired shade.
Either use a piping bag or a sandwich bag with a small hole in the corner cut out to put the chocolate on the tree. I tried a few ways and I think drizzling quickly from a height on the diagonal diagonally looks best.
If using icing, give the chocolate a few mins to cool first then string your black lights across either using the liquorice or icing. Then add on your lights alternating the colours.
Lastly, sprinkle on your additional decorations and place a star (or yellow smartie) on top of the tree and there you have it, the most adorable Christmas tree brownies.