Are you ready for Christmas? Shall we prepare a dessert with the little ones? The Christmas Tree with hazelnut cream and cinnamon is perfect for them! Super delicious, fragrant, and colorful thanks to Smarties chocolates! A snack that never gets old, branch after branch, bite after bite, the kids will be eager to put on their aprons and help you make this recipe!
I made the video recipe with step by step to help you understand the various preparation steps, such as the cutting and the closure of the delicious branches of this Tree with hazelnut cream!
I thought of this recipe after making the Halloween Monstrous Treant for my nieces. Since it was also loved by the adults, I thought of making it in a more Christmas version. So here I am sharing with you the Christmas puff pastry Tree with Nutella and cinnamon!
Before moving on to the recipe, I would like to remind you that I await you every morning in the Facebook group and fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day, an unmissable appointment for the entire community of my cooking blog!
Below you will find other Christmas Recipes that I have proposed over the years, from the Savory Christmas Tree Tart with speck and tomatoes, which is the New 2024, to the Christmas Trees with sandwich bread with tuna sauce and arugula. Then there are desserts to try, don’t miss the Christmas French Toast with Panettone! Try them all and then let me know in the comments if you like them! All the links below are clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you choose to read!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 7People
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Christmas, New Year's Eve
- Energy 466.02 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 34.13 (g) of which sugars 4.86 (g)
- Proteins 7.46 (g)
- Fat 33.26 (g) of which saturated 4.25 (g)of which unsaturated 19.99 (g)
- Fibers 2.39 (g)
- Sodium 169.50 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 75 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for a Christmas Tree with Hazelnut Cream and Cinnamon
- 2 rolls puff pastry (rectangular)
- 3.5 oz hazelnut cream
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 egg (to brush the surface of the dessert)
- 30 chocolates (colored, in my case Smarties)
- 1 coffee cup milk (about 0.7 fl oz)
Tools for Sweet Christmas Tree Recipe with Hazelnut Cream and Chocolate Balls
- 1 Work surface
- 1 Knife
- 1 Small bowl
- 1 Brush
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Oven
- 1 Parchment paper
- 1 Cookie cutter
Steps for Christmas Tree Recipe with Hazelnut Cream and Cinnamon, Super Colorful and Delicious
Let’s start by taking the two rolls of rectangular puff pastry from the refrigerator, opening the packages and placing them on the work surface. Let them rest, still rolled up, for about 5 to 10 minutes. This time will allow the pastry not to be too stiff at the time of preparation, making the cutting and rolling of the branches more manageable.
After this time, unroll the puff pastries, one will be the base of the dessert while the other will be used to close and seal the hazelnut cream. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Take a spoon or spatula, the jar of hazelnut cream and brush the surface avoiding reaching the edges.
As you can see from the video recipe below the first photo, I left a generous centimeter on all four sides of the puff. This will allow us to seal the two puff pastries well by applying firm pressure with the fingertips. This will prevent the hazelnut cream from oozing out from the dessert. It will therefore appear as a dark rectangle with a narrow part in the center that will become the trunk of the Christmas Tree.
Once the chocolate is spread, we can place the other puff on top of the cream and seal the edges. Then take a knife without serration and sharp. If you want to decorate the Christmas Tree with cookie cutters, you can do so by choosing a cookie cutter. I chose the star that reminds one of the Nativity symbols.
Once the puff is sealed, we can cut out the trunk by vertically cutting the puff pastry. In the video recipe you can see this step, in fact, I had spread chocolate only in the central part of the puff because I already knew I would cut away the two side rectangles.
Then I cut the tip in the center, to form the Tree, then diagonal cuts to create the branches. I recommend, if you don’t understand the steps from the text, watch the video recipe which will surely be more explanatory in this sense.
Now carefully roll each strip of puff. Carefully to avoid oozing the chocolate filling. From the parts of puff we have cut away, so the two rectangles at the base and the two triangles from the tip, cut out shapes with the cookie cutters. As I mentioned, I chose a small star mold. Fix the stars, or the shape you’ve chosen, by applying gentle pressure on the part of the Tree you prefer.
Place the colored chocolates similar to Smarties here and there and proceed by taking a small bowl and a kitchen brush. Break the egg, add the 0.7 fl oz of milk and sprinkle with some cinnamon. Mix everything with a fork. There is no specific dose for cinnamon, the more you add, the more the dessert will have this intense Christmas scent at the end of baking!
Gently brush the entire surface of the dessert to avoid moving the colored chocolates and the Christmas Tree decoration shapes. Bake in the center rack of the oven and let bake for about 20 to 22 minutes. You will see that the puff pastry will become golden and puffy.
Remove from the oven and place the dessert on the work surface to prevent it from remaining in the tray which will continue to emit heat and risk hardening the base of our Christmas dessert. Let it cool for about 5 minutes before serving the dessert so that the hazelnut cream has time to cool and stabilize.
You can choose to sprinkle with powdered sugar the Christmas Tree with hazelnut cream or not, as I did since I am not fond of powdered sugar.
I hope you liked this recipe, let me know in the comments if you will try it this Christmas and if you feel like sharing your photos with me on social profiles or via email at lericettedibea@gmail.com. I wish you a good appetite and remind you I always wait for you here on my blog for the next easy, quick, and delicious recipe!
Tips and Variations:
The main tips I have are two fundamentally: the first is not to set the oven at too high a temperature. You will burn the dessert instead of cooking it faster as someone might mistakenly think. The second is to leave the two rolls of puff pastry for 5 to 10 minutes on the work surface at room temperature before starting the preparation of our Christmas Tree with hazelnut cream and cinnamon. This will make the puff pastry easier to work with and cut and above all will not create a cold/hot contrast when we bake the dessert.
As for variations, I leave you free choice: you can vary the cream perhaps using a pistachio cream, a cocoa cream with salted caramel or a coconut cream. You will find these three creams in the Fabbri 1905 store and you can purchase them using my dedicated discount code of 20% by entering FABBRIBEA20 by December 20! For the official store click here!
As for variations, I leave you free choice: you can vary the cream perhaps using a pistachio cream, a cocoa cream with salted caramel or a coconut cream. You will find these three creams in the Fabbri 1905 store and you can purchase them using my dedicated discount code of 20% by entering FABBRIBEA20 by December 20! For the official store click here!
