Holidays this year have been relaxing thanks to no travel plans – got a chance to catch up on some reading, chores, paper reviews (I know that sounds like work) as well as a good dose of cooking and baking! For Christmas this year, I wanted to try something that I had not made before – but couldn’t decide between a sweet or savory dish. So I ended up making both.
These
puff pastry Christmas trees are not only pretty to look at and delicious in
taste, they are also extremely easy to make. You could make the puff pastry and
filling from scratch, but I have used store bought frozen pastry sheets, pesto
sauce and Nutella for the fillings.
Ingredients:
4 Puff pastry sheets – I
used 2 packs of Pilsbury brand pastry sheets from the frozen section at grocery
stores. Each pack has two sheets. You could certainly make your own pastry
dough.
Pesto sauce (Or other
savory sauce of choice)
Nutella or other chocolate
spread (Fruit preserves and pastry cream would work well too)
Optional toppings:
Savory – Butter, Parmesan cheese
Sweet – Sugar glaze (confectioners sugar, milk,
vanilla essence)
Thaw
the pastry sheets overnight in the refrigerator. Spread pesto sauce on one
sheet. Place another sheet on top. Cut out the Christmas tree shape (you could
make a stencil on paper first). How wide you want to make the tree is up to you
– I used the maximum width of the pastry sheets, with the stem being about an
inch tall. Repeat the same procedure with the remaining two sheets using
Nutella spread for a sweet version.
Make
symmetric cuts leaving about an inch in the middle. My pesto tree had wider
strips but I decided to make the cuts closer for the sweet one. Starting from
the bottom-right, twist each strip in the clockwise direction. Repeat the same
on the other side making sure it is symmetric (anti-clockwise twists on the
left side).
The
pastry puffs up a lot as it bakes, so press on the edges (especially at the tree
top and the bottom). Also, pushing the lower “branches” upwards works best as
they tend to move apart as they bake.
Bake
for about 20 min or until golden brown. Add toppings while the pastry is warm.
Toppings:
For
the pesto tree, brush the warm baked pastry with melted butter and sprinkle
Parmesan cheese (it looks like snow!).
For
the sweet pastry, prepare the sugar glaze by mixing ¼ cup of confectioners
sugar with just enough milk to form a thin paste (add milk by teaspoons). Add a
few drops of vanilla essence. Drizzle glaze on warm pastry.
Tip:
If the edges (top, bottom, or even branch tips) start to brown a lot while the
pastry is still uncooked in the middle, you can use pieces of aluminum foil to
cover these areas to slow down the browning.
~Gayatri