Make your holidays extra festive with these fudgy M&M’S Brownie Christmas Trees. Delicious and easy to make, this holiday dessert is a crowd pleaser!
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Brownie Christmas Trees
We caught the holiday spirit early this year. Christmas carols are in heavy rotation and our holiday baking marathon is in full swing! We love this time of year, that’s why we had to make these Christmas Tree Brownies – fudgy brownies, vanilla frosting with M&M’S® candies as ornaments make these the cutest treat ever! They even have a candy cane “trunk” for a hint of peppermint!
Be forewarned, while making these Brownie Christmas Trees, a few M&M’S happened to disappear. I’m pretty sure it was elves – or maybe they made it into the family’s mouths when I wasn’t looking!
M&M’S Ornaments for Christmas Tree Brownies
After braving the rain for our weekly shopping trip to the store, the first thing that greeted us as I walked through the sliding doors was their seasonal extravaganza. It was filled with cheery holiday decor, baking essentials and gifts – there was an entire aisle dedicated to delicious holiday treats.
That’s where we found the holiday red & green M&M’S for this recipe. It was hard to decide between the milk chocolate or peanut varieties, but because the size was perfect, milk chocolate it was! We were totally laughing as we perused the selection and saw the M&M’S Ugly Sweater packaging.
Grab your keys and phone and use these handy store locators to find the location nearest to you. This way, you can easily get all your holiday baking, party planning, gifting & decorating done while you’re there!
Christmas Baking
Turn up the Christmas music, grab your mixing bowl and let’s get baking! Because they are heavenly, I used my fudgy chocolate brownie recipe for the trees. However, you could easily grab a boxed brownie mix if you prefer and are tight on time, but once you try homemade brownies though, you can never go back 🙂
The same goes for the frosting, I like a homemade frosting, but whatever flavor you prefer from a container is fine too.
After your brownies are baked and cooled, they need to be cut into triangles. This can be a bit tricky, but the easiest way I’ve found is to divide the pan into thirds the long way. Then cut diagonally, making triangles down each third. There will be extra at the ends so just use that to ‘taste test’ the batch 🙂
Place them on a solid surface and create frosting ribbons starting at the bottom of the tree. Using a small plastic bag with the end of one corner cut off, pipe the frosting on to the trees. You can color your frosting green or red for a festive variety.
It’s time to trim your tree with M&M’S ornaments and a candy cane trunk. Seasonal red and green M&M’S make the perfect decorations for trees, don’t ya think!?! Just break the curved portion of a small candy cane off and insert it into the bottom of the tree to make its trunk.
Ho Ho Ho, it’s finished!
Brownie Christmas Trees Recipe
This recipe would be so cute to take to a cookie exchange or holiday party!
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Brownie Christmas Trees
Ingredients
Brownies
- 2 2/3 cups 2-10-oz. pkgs. dark chocolate morsels, divided
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup butter (cut into pieces)
- 4 tablespoons water
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Frosting
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup butter (slightly soft)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
Decorations
- M&M’S candies
- Nonpareils (optional)
- small candy canes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325º F. Line 13x9-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside 2/3 cup chocolate morsels.
- Heat 2 2/3 cups morsels, sugar, butter and water in small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate and butter are melted.
- Pour into large bowl. Cool slightly. Stir in eggs, one at a time, with a whisk until blended. Stir in vanilla extract.
- Add flour and salt; mix well with wooden spoon. Stir in remaining 2/3 cup morsels and nuts. Pour into prepared baking pan.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool in pan on wire rack.
- While brownies bake, make your frosting by mixing powdered sugar and butter in a medium bowl with spoon or electric mixer on low speed. Stir in vanilla and 1 tablespoon milk.
- Gradually beat in just enough remaining milk to make frosting smooth and spreadable. If frosting is too thick, beat in more milk, a few drops at a time. If frosting becomes too thin, beat in a small amount of powdered sugar.
- Cut brownies into triangles. Break curved end of candy cane off and insert into the bottom of brownie tree. Decorate with ribbons of frosting by placing frosting in plastic bag and snipping off the end and piping it onto the brownies. Then finish by adding M&M’S. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Make life easy this year and head to Fred Meyer for all your baking and holiday goodies. Grab a bag or two of red and green (or the Ugly Sweater) M&M’S and bake up some Brownie Christmas Trees memories!
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