Make Anything a Tree

Holiday Arranged Food

The basic tree design is one of the easiest to make and can be easily made with most any smaller type food. A Christmas tree can either lay flat or stand tall when made with food.

Cookies can also be shaped into a tree.
Try making multiple sizes of cut-out cookies with the star cookie cutter. They can then be stacked starting largest to smallest to form a nice looking tree. They can be stacked when the frosting is still damp and then they will stick together to make transport easy, but eating a little harder. If the frosting is hardened, then the tree will easily slide but it will be easier to eat the individual cookies.

Crackers arrange nicely.
Take ordinary Ritz crackers and arrange them in a top down pattern of straight rows in a very mathematical way. Simply start at the top of the platter with one of the food item and then add one more item in each row as you work toward the bottom of the platter. Make the tree as large as you want, but once at the bottom add two more to make the base of the tree. The basic pattern (from the top) is 1,2,3,4,5,6… 2. Don’t forget to add a star at the top, get creative to make it shine. Use a cheese spread with a green herb and a thin string of red pepper or sun dried tomato and you’ve got a Christmas tree. Finish it off with a slice of cheese that a small star cookie cutter cuts into and you have the star on top!

Little cucumber tea sandwiches or bruschetta toast also make a holiday presentation when arranged in the tree formation as described above. They can also be arranged in a circle to make a wreath. Add some springs of Rosemary here & there to look like evergreens popping out of the circular wreath.

Cream puffs are another idea that can become 3D.
Buy that big carton of the little cream puffs found in the freezer section of most warehouse and grocery stores, then arrange them in circles that get progressively smaller as they are stacked. Use the cracks between puffs to hold each successive layer firmly in place and make sure they stay in place by using a little bit of frosting or fudge sauce to act as glue between the layers. Drizzle them all with a little melted chocolate, use red and green melting chocolates (melted in two separate bowls and drizzled separately) for a festive look. A thin icing colored red or green also makes a nice drizzle. Or, even easier, use Hershey’s syrup for the drizzle or just use colored sugar sprinkles or sugar in a mix of green and red.

A cake can look like a tree without a special cake pan.
Just need a knife. Simply cut a triangle from the inside of a rectangular cake. Add a chocolate star just north of the cake and a cupcake or two just south of the cake. Another tree has been created! Don’t forget to use the outside cuttings for tea cakes or cake pops.

Another popular shape this time of year is a wreath.
Get out that old chip and dip dish (that big circle with a hole in the middle) and re-purpose it as a salad bowl. Arrange the colorful greens around in the circle part of the dish and then fill the center with a colorful salad dressing like raspberry vinaigrette or green goddess (or add a few drops of red food coloring to a basic ranch dressing).
The added beauty of this arrangement is that people can put their own dressing onto the salad. That way, the leftovers can be put away afterward and will keep for at least a few days longer once the party is over. Whereas, a dressed salad will be extremely soggy and not very pleasant the next day.