This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible! I love holiday-themed treats more than anything. Any holiday – Valentine’s Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween… I just think making holiday treats is so fun. And there’s just something so special about Christmas treats.
Last year, you may remember that reindeer brownies for National Brownie Day, which is December 8. They were a total crowd pleaser! Everyone wanted one!
This year I wanted to do the same concept except with presents instead of Christmas trees!
It is very rare that I use a box mix for anything, but in this case you should definitely use a box mix. The reason being is that you’re already going to decorate these brownies so why create even more work for yourself?
This Ghirardelli mix is my absolute favorite. But I always doctor it up by substituting the water for milk and the oil for Challenge butter. The brownies will taste so much richer!
Christmas Present Peppermint Brownies
Yield: Makes 16 brownies
Ingredients
For the brownies
Line 8x8-inch pan with parchment paper and spray with nonstick baking spray; set aside
Mix the milk, butter, and egg in bowl. Add the brownie mix and stir until well blended.
Spread mix into pan and bake for 26 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean
Remove from oven and let cool completely
Once cooled, lift parchment out of pan
For the buttercream frosting
Beat softened butter on medium speed for about 2 minutes until smooth and creamy.
Add powdered sugar, cream, vanilla extract, peppermint extract and salt and mix on low speed until combined and then increase to high speed for 3 minutes.
Add more powdered sugar if frosting is too thin or more cream if frosting is too thick.
Frost brownies before cutting into squares
Use red cookie icing to make cross in center of each brownie
Create cross by standing up 4 M&Ms in center of brownies
This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!
It’s undeniable that cut-out sugar cookies are extremely popular during the holiday season. There are so many adorable cookie cutters and Christmas shapes – if there was a cookie of the month for December, this would be it!
Unfortunately, they’re not necessarily the easiest cookie to make. The recipe itself is simple enough to make, and it uses ingredients that you most certainly already have in your pantry. But rolling them out can be a royal pain, and it’s very frustrating when the beautiful tree you were excite to bake just looks like a lumpy circle.
So today, I wanted to share my tips to ensure your cookies turn out picture perfect every time.
Room temperature ingredients
It’s important that all of your ingredients start out at room temperature – the eggs, the butter, the sugar, the flour… everything! This is important because ingredients can react with each other if they’re different temperatures. For example, cold eggs will curdle when combined with dairy.
I always set my refrigerated ingredients out on the counter for an hour before I start baking.
This is ESPECIALLY important with butter. Butter is the foundation for many baked goods. You know your butter is the right temperature if when you touch it, your finger leaves an imprint. It shouldn’t be too soft though that it doesn’t pull away from the wrapper.
Measure ingredients by weight
Unlike cooking, baking is an exact science, and it’s important all of the ingredients are measured properly.
The best way to do this is to measure your ingredients by weight. One of my favorite baking tools ever is the EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale. I use it to measure everything.
I try to add weight (in grams) to each ingredient listed in my recipes, but when I encounter a recipe where the weight isn’t listed, I used this ingredient weight chart to check.
Do not overmix the dough!
In order to get cut-out sugar cookies to hold their shape, it’s necessary to use a recipe with a higher concentration of flour. Because of this, there is obviously more gluten in recipe.
When you overwork gluten, cookies become tough. So once the dry ingredients are incorporated into the wet ingredients, put those beaters down and stop mixing! This rule applies to all cookies. Cookies are more tender with less mixing.
Roll your dough out before refrigeration
It may seem backwards to roll out your dough before refrigeration, but it actually makes the most sense!
It’s significantly easier to roll out the dough right after you mix it because it’s soft and pliable.It’s kind of like trying to flatten a rock if you wait until after refrigeration.
Also, a lot of recipes call for you to refrigerate the dough for several hours before baking, but if you roll out the dough first you don’t have to do that because it takes a fraction of a time to chill a sheet of cookie dough than it does to chill a block of dough.
Roll dough between two sheets parchment paper
In my opinion, the worst thing you can do to sugar cookies is to over flour them.This happens when people put flour the baking surface before rolling out the cookie dough. They do this, of course, so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin.
But you can avoid using extra flour by rolling out your dough between two sheets of wax or parchment paper.
Refrigerate dough
I guess this goes without saying if you’ve already read the previous steps, but you must refrigerate your dough after rolling it flat. If the dough is warm, the cookies will spread and will look like blobs. No one wants that.
A lot of recipes will recommend that you chill the dough for several hours, but I don’t think that’s necessary. In my opinion, 30 minutes to 1 hour is plenty of time. The dough should be cold enough that when you use a cookie cutter, the shape will lift off of the rest of the dough.
Your cookie dough should feel cold when you put it in the oven. This will prevent spread. In between batches, stick the dough back in the refrigerator.
Use one cookie cutter at a time
Get the most bang for your buck by using one cookie cutter at a time.
For example, the first batch of cookies I make, I will only use the tree shape. You’ll be able to cut more cookies out of the dough and have less scraps. It’s important to not put the cookie cutter too close to the edge because the edges are thinner and that will bake faster than the rest of the cookie.
Also, when you use the same cookie cutter, all of the cookies are the same size and bake evenly.
Do not overbake
Cut-out sugar cookies cook quickly because of all of their different edges. Start checking on them about 4 minutes prior to what the cooking time suggests. Once the edge of the cookie starts to look golden, remove them from the oven immediately.
Buttercream frosting
This is personal preference, but I think buttercream frosting has a lot more flavor than the royal icing that is generally used when frosting sugar cookies.
If you plan to use sprinkles, do this immediately after frosting, otherwise it will harder (or “crust”) and not stick.
I always use a piping bag and piping tip to decorate my cookies. They’re inexpensive and very easy to use. I just make small little dots all over the cookie to achieve the textured look.
FACT: Food is instantly better when it’s been holiday-fied ß Not a word, but that’s okay. Remember these candy corn Rice Krispies treats I made for Halloween? Yeah, ADORABLE! So for Christmas, I’m adding a seasonal spin to a classic dessert – BROWNIES!
Quadrilateral brownies are so overrated. Instead, I’m making Christmas tree brownies! Initially, I used a Christmas tree cookie cutter to cut the brownies into the appropriate shape, but there were too many scraps and not enough trees with that method. So instead, I cut the brownies into triangles, which look just like trees with significantly less scraps. In fact, there are exactly four half-triangle scraps that you should most definitely snack on while cutting the rest of the brownies.
But no Christmas tree is complete without garland and ornaments, right? So I decorated the trees with vanilla buttercream frosting, sprinkles, and mini M&Ms! I used vanilla buttercream frosting as opposed to cream cheese frosting or chocolate ganache because buttercream frosting hardens, it lasts longer, and it’s easier to transport ß important if you want to stick these in cute holiday bags and hand out as gifts to your friends and neighbors.
Also, Christmas trees have trunks, which are easily made with candy canes!
FOREWARNING: You may be surprised that my brownie “recipe” is a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix. I can already hear the haters saying, “That’s not actual home-baking!” Well ya know what, I’ve tested out half-a-dozen homemade brownie recipes and the Ghirardelli brownie mix is my favorite. And I think sometimes we forget that easier is better. So I’m using brownie mix and NO ONE CAN STOP ME FROM LICKING THE BATTER!
Christmas Tree Brownies
Ingredients
For the brownies
Two boxes of Ghirardelli brownie mix
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
For the buttercream frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 to 5 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
For the brownies
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
Line a 15x10* baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with nonstick baking spray (the reason for using aluminum foil is so that they’re easy to pull out of the pan). Set pan aside.
Mix the water, vegetable oil, and eggs in a bowl.
Add the two boxes of brownie mix and stir until well-blended.
Spread mix into pan.
Bake brownies for 39 minutes. Check on them – if you stick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean, they’re done! If brownie mix sticks on the toothpick, bake for a two more minutes and check again.
When the brownies have cooled, life the aluminum foil out of the pan.
Slice the brownies in half length-wise (down the center) and then make six diagonal cuts to form 22 “trees” with four edges as scraps in each corner.
For the buttercream
Beat softened butter on medium speed for about 2 minutes until smooth and creamy.
Add powdered sugar and mix until combined
Add cream, vanilla extract, and salt and mix until combined
Increase mixer to high speed and beat for 3 full minutes.
Add more powdered sugar if frosting is too thin or more cream if frosting is too thick.
OPTIONAL: Add two to three drops of green food coloring and mix until color is distributed.
Decorate brownies with frosting, sprinkles, and other toppings of your choice!
*If you don’t have a 15x10 pan, use a 9x13 pan – the brownies will just be a little thicker.
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