Looking for a quick and easy festive treat this holiday season? You can't get easier (or tastier) than my Biscoff Puff Pastry Christmas Tree. This simple Biscoff pull apart Christmas tree made with puff pastry is essentially only two ingredients and less than 30 minutes from start to finish.
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Ingredients
You only really need two ingredients for this recipe:
- Lotus Biscoff Cookie Butter Spread - I like to use crunchy Biscoff for this bread for a little texture, but you can use smooth Biscoff too. You can also substitute with other cookie butters, such as Trader Joe's Speculoos variety.
- Puff Pastry Sheets - you'll need two standard ready to bake sheets of puff pastry for this recipe. The size of your sheets may vary a bit by brand, but I used a roughly 9"x12" sheet size for this recipe.
For an elegant finish, you may also want:
- An egg - to make a quick egg wash, which will help your pastry develop a nice glossy finish.
- Powdered sugar - to dust over the finished product.
How to Make Puff Pastry Tree
This Biscoff filled puff pastry tree is so simple to put together! You'll want to start by pre-heating your oven to 425°F (220C/200C Fan).
Sandwiching the Dough
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place your first sheet of puff pastry straight on top. If your sheets are a bit crimped from their packaging, you may wish to roll this out lightly with a rolling pin. This will also help to elongate your pastry rectangle a little bit, which makes for a nice tree shape once we begin to cut.
Top this first sheet of pastry with your Biscoff spread. I dollop spoonfuls over the top and spread in an even layer over the surface.
Next, sandwich your filling with the second sheet of puff pastry. Note: if you rolled your first sheet out, you'll want to lightly roll the second as well. Do this on a separate work surface before placing on top of the Biscoff filling, so that it is about the same size/shape as the bottom layer. Then add it to the top and press lightly to secure.
Cutting the Tree
To cut the tree shape, start by lightly tracing yourself a pattern onto the pastry with a knife. Don't cut too deeply at this stage - if you want to change the shape in any way, it's easy to do as long as you've drawn this lightly with the blade!
I begin by finding the centrepoint of the top short side of your dough. You really don't have to be precise here - doing it by eye is absolutely fine.
Next, identify the bottom tips of your tree. Trace yourself a light outline of a long triangle, from the top centre point down to a tip on each of the long sides. For my tree, these bottom tips were about 2" up from the bottom short side of the pastry.
Then, identify your tree trunk - this should be about 1.5"-2" wide, overlaying the centrepoint of the bottom short side. Simply draw an outline for the trunk up from the bottom to be in line with the bottom tips of your tree. Connect these across with a line to form the basic tree shape.
Once you're happy with this outline, cut the pastry dough away so that you're left with the tree shape. Reserve the excess dough for decoration and extra twists.
Making the Twists on the Tree
To make the twists on this pull apart tree pastry, start by tracing light lines up from the two edges of your trunk. These will be your guidelines for cutting the dough on either side.
Make straight cuts in from the outer edge of your pastry tree, forming about 1"-1.5" wide segments from the side in to your guideline (stopping at the guideline on each side). Again, this doesn't need to be precise to achieve the desired effect. The key is that you mirror the number of segments on each side.
Now twist each segment once or twice - the amount of twisting will depend on the length of the segment and the flexibility of your dough. Don't force too many twists as you don't want to rip the dough.
Tips for Using Up Excess
With your excess dough - you can cut a star to place on top of the tree and also make extra twists to bake on the side of your tree.
Note: if making extra twists, make sure these are well spaced from your tree as puff pastry will puff and you don't want them to expand into each other!
Glazing and Baking
For a glossy finish, beat an egg and brush this over your pastry. If you don't add the egg wash, your pastry will still bake fine and taste delicious, but it won't have a shine to it.
Bake the pastry tree in the centre of the pre-heated oven until the pastry is puffed and lightly browned. This usually takes about 20 minutes, but keep an eye on your pastry as times may vary.
Once baked, remove from the oven, dust with powdered sugar and serve.
Tips and Tricks
- You don't need a ruler or precise measurements for this tree. You can trace your outline by eye - just do this lightly to begin as this will give you the opportunity to adjust.
- If you find you want to adjust the design you've traced, use your fingers to rub the dough lightly to remove the original marks. Warming and rubbing the dough will help to essentially erase any lightly traced guidelines, allowing you to redo these more to your liking.
- The pattern I've described is just a suggestion - you can have a significantly wider tree trunk or narrower segments if you'd like.
- With the segments, the main thing to keep in mind is that making these super wide will make them difficult to twist. Similarly, making them very narrow may lead to over twisting and ripping the dough. These are the pieces that will be ripped apart most readily when serving your bread, so think of them as portions for tearing apart.
FAQs
My Biscoff Christmas tree is best served fresh on the day it is baked. Puff pastry will lose its crispness if stored and there's nothing better than a bit of warm Biscoff and pastry.
That said, you can certainly keep leftovers for a day or two at room temperature. I'd recommend wrapping or storing in an air tight container.
I wouldn't recommend freezing this bread. This is because most ready to bake puff pastries are already frozen, which means they'll defrost as you make the bread and then shouldn't really be refrozen afterwards.
If you want to make this in advance, you can prepare the tree (cut out your design, and have it set up ready to bake). Then, store it in the refrigerator overnight until ready to bake. This is particularly useful for making this bread as a breakfast or brunch.
Absolutely yes! This is a recipe and guide to making a cookie butter filled puff pastry tree. You can use smooth or crunchy cookie butter spreads. I like to use crunchy Biscoff, but any brand could work here!
You can also use other spreads, such as Nutella, peanut butter, other nut butters or sweet spreads in this recipe.
Looking for more quick and easy festive recipes? Try:
Biscoff Puff Pastry Christmas Tree
Ingredients
- 2 ready to bake puff pastry sheets
- ⅓ cup crunchy Biscoff cookie butter spread or other cookie butter spread
- 1 egg for egg wash
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Begin by pre-heating the oven to 425°F (220C/200C Fan).
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place one rectangular sheet of puff pastry on the sheet. (see note)
- Spoon out dollops of cookie butter and use an offset spatula to spread out evenly over the full sheet.
- Place the second puff pastry sheet over top and press gently to sandwich together. (see note)
- Using a knife, lightly trace a basic tree outline into your puff pastry. Start from the centre of the top short side, drawing a long triangle down, to points about 2" up from the bottom short side. (see note) This will give you space at the bottom for your tree trunk.
- Trace a tree trunk about 1.5" wide overlaying the mid-point of the bottom short side and rising up to the line with the bottom of your tree.
- Once you're happy with your tree outline, cut away the excess pastry, reserving this for decoration.
- Lightly score lines up from the sides of your trunk (making a long rectangle over the centre of your tree) - these will provide guidelines for when you slice your branch segments.
- Cut straight lines in from the outer edge of your tree to the guidelines on each side (leaving the core of the tree intact) to make segments or 'branches'. Each should be about 1"-1.5" wide. (see note)
- Once segmented, twist each branch one or two times to give the swirl of Biscoff and pastry.
- Using excess pastry, cut out a star to place on top of the tree (see note).
- In a small bowl beat your egg and then brush this over the pastry.
- Bake in the centre of your pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, until puffed and going golden on top.
- Once baked, remove from the oven, dust with powdered sugar and serve.
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