Christmas Tree Pastry Puff

This beautiful Christmas tree pastry puff is perfect for Christmas breakfast or brunch. It is perfect because it is festive and delicious, but also because it is sooooo easy!

Supplies:

Pastry puff dough/Filo dough (rectangle in form)
Nutella (warmed slightly to make it easier to spread)
Spatula, knife and pizza cutter

Begin by opening one sheet of your pastry dough. Lay it flat on a cookie sheet. Spread a thin layer of the warmed Nutella across the dough. It does not need to be thick.

Place your second pastry dough on top of the Nutella covered sheet of dough. Cut a small “tree trunk” out of the base of the dough. Then starting from the top cut downwards at an angle to create a tree shape.

Once you have cut out your tree set the excess dough aside.

Begin cutting “branches” with your pizza cutter. Cut only up to where you trunk line is, leaving the center space whole so that you have a line from the trunk to the top of the tree that is whole with no cuts in it.

Your cuts should be approximately 3/4 an inch in width. I went to half an inch as I went higher up on the tree.

Cut the lines out of both sides of your tree.

Begin twisting each strip of dough. Create two to 3 twists in each strip, depending on the length. Make sure your tip is still pointy.

Bake according to pastry puff instructions. I baked mine at 190°C for approximately 10 minutes. But follow your instructions closely.

You can use your leftover dough to create a second tree (see below photo). I used the leftover pieces of dough which create two large triangles and to small rectangles to form a second tree by placing the triangles in a tree shape and pressing the dough together in the middle. It separated in the oven, but still turned out beautiful.

Sprinkle your pastry puff with some powdered sugar “snow” right before serving it. Serve warm! It is no where near as tasty once it has cooled off.

You can also make a savory version with mozarella cheese, thin sliced ham, parmesean cheese and pastry puff dough.

Follow the same process and the sweet tree. But grate your ham and cheese finely. Do not add too much of any ingredient. Just a light sprinkling (see photo).