Brownies might just be the ultimate sweet treat and this festive twist on them will be a hit this Christmas. Christmas tree brownies are sweet and fudgy brownies with some festive flavours, cut in to tree shapes and decorated to look like a Christmas tree. Kids will LOVE decorating and eating these.
We love baking all through December and these Christmas Tree Brownies are always made on the day we put up the tree and again on Christmas Eve. They are fun and festive and you can decorate them in so many different ways. They are really simple to make as well, and it's all done in one bowl.
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Why should you try it?
- Perfect fudgy brownies
- Great for festive baking
- Easy to adapt with different decorations
- Make great gifts
- Kids will love decorating them
What you will need
Step by step
One: Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. Melt the chocolate either in a microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
Two: In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Slowly add the eggs and beat well.
Three: Add all the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, orange juice and zest. Mix well to form a smooth batter. Pour in the melted chocolate and mix again.
Four: Grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) tray. Pour the batter into the tin and smooth over the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes. Once cooked leave in the tin to cool for 20 minutes.
Five: Cut into triangles and decorate like Christmas trees. Use icing for tinsel, chocolate sticks for the trunk and sugar balls and stars for decorations.
What brownies to use
If you have a favourite brownie recipe, then feel free to use that and cut it in to triangles for the tree shape and then decorate them. However, this brownie recipe is epic and makes perfectly fudgy brownies with plenty of chocolate and the crackly top.
Decorations
Once you have your brownies, you are ready to decorate them and here is where you can go really wild. We used a plain white icing and drizzled thin lines over it to look like tinsel. You could swap this for green icing, or even thick frosting if you wanted to make it more the same colour as a Christmas tree.
Then you can add pretty much anything. We went with tiny gold balls, a gold star on top and then some mini smarties at the edges for baubles. You can use whatever sprinkles you have. A spray of edible glitter works really well too.
To give the effect of a tree trunk, we put matchmakers in to them. You could use Cadburys chocolate fingers instead, or even candy canes.
FAQs
You can partly make them in advance. You can bake the brownies and then cut them in to tree shapes and then freeze them (undecorated) for up to a once. Then you simply need to defrost them and then add your decorations.
The most common reason why brownies sink is because of over-mixing. You only need to fold the ingredients together, not beating them. This is why we beat the eggs before adding them to everything else, so we don't have to beat them in and can just fold everything together.
If you have followed our recipe exactly, and not over cooked them, then you shouldn't have cakey brownies. This happens when there is a higher flour to fat ratio, which this recipes doesn't have.
Yes, they would make super cute gifts. Wait until the icing has fully set and then you can wrap individual brownies in cellophane with some ribbon and add to Christmas gift baskets.
Extra tips
- It is best to use eggs at room temperature for these brownies. Adding cold eggs to the batter can sometimes make the softened butter and chocolate hard again, and this can sometimes affect the texture of the finished brownies.
- We make our brownies in an 8x10 inch pan. This results in the perfect pan of brownies to cut in to tree shapes. If you use a different size pan, then you might end up with thicker or thinner brownies.
- Allow the brownies to cool fully before attempting to cut them.
- You will have some scraps leftover from cutting the brownies. We like to crumble them on to vanilla ice cream.
- You can make your Christmas trees as big or as small as you like, however we like little mini ones, so they are almost bite sized.
- The nutritional information for this recipe is for the brownies only. Decorations will add calories and will depend on what you use.
- If you wanted to make a really simple version of these, that weren't tree shapes, then leave them in the tray and decorate them with icing and sprinkles. They would still have all the festive flavours, without any effort of shaping them.
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Recipe
Christmas Tree Brownies
Ingredients
- 100 g milk chocolate
- 2 eggs
- 125 g butter softened
- 275 g caster sugar
- 0.5 tsp vanilla essence
- 50 g self raising flour
- 25 g plain flour (all purpose)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 orange (juice and zest only)
- 5 matchmaker chocolate sticks (broken in half)
- sugar decorations
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.
- Melt the chocolate either in a microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter together until smooth. Slowly add the eggs and beat well.
- Add all the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, orange juice and zest. Mix well to form a smooth batter. Pour in the melted chocolate and mix again.
- Grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) tray. Pour the batter into the tin and smooth over the top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes. Once cooked leave in the tin to cool for 20 minutes.
- Cut into triangles and decorate like Christmas trees. Use icing for tinsel, chocolate sticks for the trunk and sugar balls and stars for decorations.
Notes
- It is best to use eggs at room temperature for these brownies. Adding cold eggs to the batter can sometimes make the softened butter and chocolate hard again, and this can sometimes affect the texture of the finished brownies.
- We make our brownies in an 8x10 inch pan. This results in the perfect pan of brownies to cut in to tree shapes. If you use a different size pan, then you might end up with thicker or thinner brownies.
- Allow the brownies to cool fully before attempting to cut them.
- You will have some scraps leftover from cutting the brownies. We like to crumble them on to vanilla ice cream.
- You can make your Christmas trees as big or as small as you like, however we like little mini ones, so they are almost bite sized.
- The nutritional information for this recipe is for the brownies only. Decorations will add calories and will depend on what you use.
- If you wanted to make a really simple version of these, that weren't tree shapes, then leave them in the tray and decorate them with icing and sprinkles. They would still have all the festive flavours, without any effort of shaping them.
Krissy Allori
Such a great idea for Christmas! The kids loved these.
Laura
We made these as a family last night for our at-home Christmas party. It was so much fun. The brownie Christmas trees are so festive. We all enjoyed decorating them.
jen
I love how cute these are, and so much easier than baking and decorating sugar cookies. I would rather have a brownie anyway!
rika
These Christmas tree brownies are so cute! I think my kids would love to decorate them!
Jesse
Yes! These brownies are so adorable and yummy too. Love them!