Christmas Tree Brownies - DIY Holiday Decorating Station

Christmas Tree Brownies are a festive and easy treat to create a decorating station at your holiday get togethers! All you need are brownies, icing, sprinkles and candies.

Christmas Tree Brownies Recipe

Growing up we always spent our holidays enjoying a meal with family and then ended the night playing board games and video games! My family loves a little competition around the holidays. Each year we look for a new board game that we play first and then rotate through some of our favorites.

From board games, to video games to even decorating gingerbread cookies! We can make a competition out of anything and have a good time with it. This year we wanted something a little different. Something we had never done before. In came Christmas tree brownies.

Everyone has had at least one gingerbread cookie in their life but I'm sure they have had a lot more brownies! I love this decorating idea for turning brownies into trees because for me personally, I prefer brownies over gingerbread. Not to mention, brownies are so much easier to make than gingerbread!

Easy Christmas Tree Brownies Recipe

Gone are the days of rolling out cookie dough and cutting shape after shape of gingerbread cookies. Then rolling out the dough again to make even more cookies. Instead, simply grab a box or two of brownie mix from the grocery store. Bake them up and slice into triangles to create the trees!

Grab a container of store bought icing from the store, tint it with a bit of green good coloring and transfer it into a Ziploc bag or piping bag. Set up a decorating station with all of the cut brownies, bowls with sprinkles, candies and candy canes (or pretzels) for the tree trunks and have your guests decorate!

Not only do these brownies make a great decorating station for your get together, they are also a perfect dessert to serve at your gathering! They are so cute and festive I love serving them for dessert pre-decorated. You can even pack them up in festive boxes and give them as gifts.

What is in Christmas Tree Brownies?

• Brownies - prepared store bought mix or homemade brownies can be used. Bake in a 9" x 9" baking dish for optimal shape, thickness and size (an 8" x 8" baking dish also works great but the brownies will be a little bit thicker).

• Decorations
  • Tree Trunks - candy canes or pretzel sticks
  • Ornaments - sprinkles, small candies
  • Tree Topper - yellow sprinkle, star shaped candy
  • Tinsel - store bought or homemade icing made green with food coloring

How to Make Christmas Tree Brownies

Full Printable Recipe at Bottom of Page

Prepare Brownies

1 Line a square 9" x 9" (or 8" x 8") baking pan with parchment paper, or just grease the pan. Prepare the brownie mix according to the package directions and bake as directed. Cool brownies at room temperature until fully cooled (about 1 hour)

2 Carefully lift the parchment paper from the pan to remove the brownies from the pan. Or use a knife/spatula to loosen the edges from the pan and then flip the pan over to remove the brownie slab in one piece.

3 Cut the brownies triangles. First cut 3 even size rows. Then cut each row in alternating diagonals to create triangles. You will get 4 triangles from each row.

Prepare Icing

1 In a small bowl combine the vanilla icing with 2-3 drops of green food coloring. Mix until evenly combined (add more food coloring until you reach your desired green color).

2 Add the green icing into a piping bag, or Ziploc bag with a small piece of the corner cut off.

3 Starting at the top of each tree, gently squeeze the icing in a zigzag as you go down the tree.

Decorate

1 Insert candy canes (rounded cane piece broken off and remaining cane broken in half) or pretzel sticks into the base of the tree to create the tree trunk.

2 Add sprinkles on top of the icing to decorate and a star sprinkle or candy to top the tree. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks

• Brownies - using store bought brownie mix is my favorite shortcut for this recipe. The brownies always turns out perfect and I don't have to stress about having all the ingredients on hand to make brownies from scratch. To maximize the number of brownie trees being made, I recommend using a 9" x 9" square baking dish. You can also use an 8"x 8" dish but the brownies will be a little bit thicker and smaller

• Icing - I prefer using store bought icing for this recipe as it is very thick. Any store bought white cake icing (or colored if you can find premade green icing) works great (for example, Creamy Vanilla Frosting, Cream Cheese Frosting, Creamy Butter Cream Frosting). If you are making homemade icing I would recommend a thick vanilla buttercream or else the icing will drip off the brownies

• Brownie Edges - I love the edges of the brownies, they are my favorite part. So crispy and delicious. However, you can trim off the edges before slicing the bake brownies into triangles. This will make it a bit easier to insert the candy cane trunks.

Decorating Variation

If you like this brownie tree decoration idea check out my recipe for Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats (linked here):

Looking for More Fun Christmas Treats

Checkout my most popular recipes:

• Gingerbread Truffles - made with only 3 ingredients these truffle take classic gingerbread cookies to the next level! You won't believe how simple and delicious these are.
• Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars - growing up this was my favorite holiday treat. Two layers of chocolate chip cookie dough baked into bars with a creamy cheesecake layer in between.
• Oreo Fudge - a simple no bake dessert perfect for making ahead! Shortcut Oreo fudge made with only 3 ingredients.

Enjoy!

- Sab

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, may earn me a small commission.