7 DIY Christmas Tree Desserts    

Nothing’s more festive than serving treats at your Christmas get-together. Make it even more fun by turning the desserts into part of your holiday decor. Top off your lovely holiday dinner with playful Christmas-themed desserts with these Christmas baking ideas from us at Pottery Barn.

Colorful Frosted Holiday Cupcakes

To turn ordinary cupcakes into an easy Christmas tree treat, create your own pull-apart cupcake cake. Begin by arranging cupcakes on a large platter or cardboard cake form in the shape of a tree. Use a frosting bag with a star or round tip. Outline the shape and then fill in the middle section. Use an angled spatula to smooth out the icing, creating your shape and the pull-apart cake. Decorate with colored sprinkles and candies. Leave a butter knife near the display so guests can easily separate the cupcakes from the tree. This also works well with other traditional Christmas shapes, and you can easily create a large candy cane or yellow star using the same technique.

Display decorated cupcakes in a shape similar to a fir tree by placing them on a tiered stand ­– they don’t need to be green! The overall conical tree shape makes it look like its own holiday decoration.

Individual Christmas Tree Cakes

Trim a sheet cake down into individual servings and decorate each piece with fun holiday flair. Start with a half-frozen sheet cake ­– freezing the cake for an hour makes it easier to cut and frost. Cut it into triangles and use a knife to add green icing and hard candy for bulbs. Add peppermint sticks for the tree trunks.

Frosted Sugar Cookies

Decorating sugar cookies is a beloved holiday tradition in many families. It creates memories for kids, and everyone gets to enjoy the sweet morsels and creative decorations. For a colorful touch on shaped cookies, add green food coloring to the batter when mixing. Then, let everyone in the family have fun spreading colored frosting on cookies. Set out dishes of colored sugar and sprinkles to add to the frosted cookies.

Pick Apart Candy Trees

Add candy to your holiday dessert table by making a pick-apart candy tree. Spread a layer of frosting over a conical-shaped Styrofoam form. Using round or foil wrapped candies, put a dab of frosting or melted chocolate on the back of each one to attach to the form to make the Christmas tree. If you are using all wrapped candies, glue dots are an easy way to affix the treats to the form.

Easy Pretzel Trees

For a quick and easy Christmas tree treat, melt green candy disks in the microwave. Line wax paper with mini pretzel rods. Using a piping bag, drizzle the melted candy mixture back and forth over the pretzel rods forming a triangle shape. Make it thick so that the candy will hold up when set. Sprinkle with colored jimmies while the candy coating is still wet. Finish off with royal icing for a festive touch. When set, gently peel from the wax paper. Place these in a basket grouped together for a cute arrangement.

Cereal Treat Bars

Using your favorite rice cereal bar recipe, it is easy to create holiday desserts with a decorative flair. Simply add a bit of green food coloring or paste to the melted marshmallows. Form the cereal mixture into cone shapes and add gumdrops for additional decoration. Or you can cut into squares and stack into a tree shape, which is also a unique presentation on your table. Use red and green sprinkles or coated chocolate candies to add to the holiday theme.

Brownie Cake Pops

For this tasty take on cake pops, use a tree-shaped cookie cutter to cut out shapes from a pan of brownies. Insert a wooden lollipop stick into the cutout. Drizzle with royal icing and decorate with colored sugar. Wrap with clear cellophane cookie bags and secure with holiday ribbons. This is a fun take-away after a holiday party.