Sweet Puff Pastry Christmas Tree Recipe with Spices
The holiday season is officially here! That means it's time to get out this festive recipe. This Puff pastry Christmas Tree recipe is delicious, crispy, flaky and buttery. It has a spiced sugary centre that's perfect for Christmas parties. Also, it's undeniably beautiful and will be the star of your holiday table.
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Servings: 8 people
Ingredients
For the rough puff pastry (replace for 1kg / 2.2lb store-bought)
- 500 g all-purpose flour
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 400 g cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
- 150 ml water
For the filling
- 70 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 100 g brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
For the egg wash
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp milk
For finishing
- 20 g unsalted butter melted
- 50 g granulated sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
For the rough puff pastry
- In a large bowl place the flour, salt and butter. Mix.
- Use your fingers to pinch the butter along with the flour to split the pieces up. We don't want to completely lose the butter but rather leave a few medium, pieces in there. That's very important to get that puffiness we're looking for.
- Add the water and incorporate the dough with your hands, kneading only enough to bring it together and then stop to prevent the butter chunks from mixing too much. The end result will be a shaggy dough.
- Flatten out the dough a bit with your hands, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour or up to 2 days.
- If you're refrigerating for more than an hour, let it come to room temperature before trying to roll it out. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a long triangle. It should be about 4-5mm thick. Use a dry pastry brush to brush off the excess flour and fold it in three.
- Spin the dough a quarter turn and roll it out again in the opposite direction than before. Use a dry pastry brush to brush off the excess flour and fold it in three again. Roll it a bit to stick the layers together.
- Your dough is ready to use! Refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes before using it if it's too soft.
- Keep it in the fridge for up to 2 days or freeze it for up to 6 months.
For the filling
- Cut the homemade rough puff pastry in half. Use a rolling pin to roll out both puff pastry pieces on a lightly floured surface until they're 3mm thin. Try to have them as square as possible and of the same size. Alternatively, you can use store-bought puff pastry sheets.
- In a small bowl, mix together the butter, spices and brown sugar.
- Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the baking sheet. Place the paper on your work surface. Place one sheet of pastry on top of the parchment paper and spread the filling on top of the first sheet of puff pastry.
- Place the second sheet of puff pastry on top and press gently to stick them together.
- Use a ruler and a sharp knife or bench scraper to cut a large triangle. I like to begin by making the base of the tree even and then measuring to get as large of a Christmas tree outline as I can. I opt to not have a base of the trunk sticking out but you can have one if you like.
- Once you have a triangle, mark without cutting the thickness that the trunk is going to have at the centre of the triangle so that you don't cut the branches all the way through. My trunk was 5cm/2in thick. Make the branches by cutting 2cm or 3/4in thick strips. For all of this, I like to use a ruler so that it's even. You can use a sharp knife, a bench scraper or even a pizza cutter. After this, lift the tree using the parchment paper underneath and place it over the baking tray.
- Twist all the branches going in the same direction for the final Puff Pastry Christmas Tree shape.
- With the excess dough next to the tree, cut out the star for the top as well as other shapes to use it up.
- Mix the egg-wash ingredients and paint them all over the tree.
- Stick the star on the top of the tree and also egg wash it. To prevent the corners of the star from falling down during baking I placed small balls of leftover dough underneath them.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 180℃/350℉ for 30-40 minutes or until it's very golden brown.
For finishing
- As soon as it comes out of the oven, paint it all over with the melted butter and immediately sprinkle it with the mix of sugar and cinnamon.
- To remove it from the baking sheet, carefully lift the baking paper (you might want help from someone else, too) and then slide it off onto a serving dish.
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