Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
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Ingredients
125ml whole milk
2 tbsp caster sugar, plus 100g for rolling
1 x 7g sachet fast action dried yeast
300g strong white bread flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 large egg
60g soft salted butter, plus 50g extra for brushing
8 waffle ice cream cones (we used Carousel brand)
foil, to wrap the cones
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g chocolate hazelnut spread
To decorate
caramel sauce, about 4 tbsp, warmed
chopped roasted hazelnuts, about 20g
icing sugar to dust
star-topped co*cktail sticks
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Step by step
Warm the milk until just lukewarm, add the sugar and yeast. Set aside for 5 minutes. Put the flour and salt in a free standing mixer or large bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the warm milk mixture, the egg and the 60g of butter. Stir to bring together, then continue to knead for 5 minutes with the dough hook on a low speed, or for 10 minutes by hand on a floured surface. Transfer to a greased bowl, and cover. Leave to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Meanwhile, prepare the cones to shape the dough. Use scissors to trim the edge of each waffle cone evenly so that they will stand up straight. Roll each cone in foil until it is covered, making sure the top has a distinct point, and tucking the foil underneath to hold it in place. Stand on a baking tray.
Preheat the oven to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas 5. Tip the dough out onto a floured worksurface and knock it back. Roll out into a large rectangle, roughly 25cm x 40cm. Cut into 8 long strips.
Melt the extra 50g of butter; mix the cinnamon with the extra 100g of sugar in a wide shallow bowl. Brush the foiled cones with some melted butter to help you remove them easily later.
Taking one strip of dough, start to wind it around a buttered cone from the base, tucking the end under the cone so it doesn’t come loose. The strip should butt up against itself as you wind, but not overlap. When the cone is completely covered, roll it firmly with your hand on your work surface to press the strips together. Snip off any excess from the top, twisting the dough to a point at the top of the cone.
Brush with more melted butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Stand on the baking tray and repeat with the remaining cones. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown; cool.
When cool enough to handle, gently remove the foil cone from inside, carefully cutting away any excess bread to trim the base evenly so the trees will stand up straight. Warm the chocolate hazelnut spread briefly in the microwave then brush it all over the inside of the cones. Handle them gently as they easily separate in a twist.
Decorate with a drizzle of caramel sauce, a scattering of nuts and a snowy dusting of icing sugar. Stick a star-topped co*cktail stick in the top of each.
Lay one of your biscuit sticks on the greaseproof paper and then use the piping bag to drizzle melted chocolate back and forth to form a tree. Leave the bottom quarter of the stick bare – this will be the tree trunk. Once you're happy with the shape, add your sprinkles on top to decorate your mini Christmas tree.
Microwave 1 cup green candy melts in 30-second intervals until melted. Transfer to a piping bag; pipe a zigzag tree shape on top of each pretzel stick, leaving the bottom half of the pretzel exposed. Sprinkle with rainbow nonpareils and let set 10 minutes. Make a few extra trees in case some break.
I just pinned mini candy bars to floral cones... Holding the top of candy wrapper, slip pin around edge sideways and while gripping edge of wrapper tightly, turn the candy bar so the front faces away from the prongs. That way the candy is pinned around the edge of the wr... Candy Christmas Tree!
Add a blob of melted chocolate onto the largest star, then place the next largest star on top. Repeat until you've built a tree. Decorate with dried cranberries or edible silver balls, using melted chocolate as 'glue'. Refrigerate until the chocolate has set.
Fill a bowl with ice water. Fill a piping bag with 1 1/4 cups melted milk chocolate and use it to draw a tree on the surface of the ice water. When the tree has hardened, turn it 90° in the water, then draw more branches and thicken the trunk on the side. Repeat several times to obtain a 3D tree.
Create your Christmas tree bases by sticking a toothpick into each remaining SNICKERS.Thread bottom of tree onto toothpick to adhere to SNICKERS. Wrap these treats up individually in festive holiday cellophane for easy gift-giving.
Using the piping bag, dot the melted chocolate onto the very top of the ball and add your first sweet. Press gently for a while until the sweet sticks without sliding off. Repeat this in circular layers with all your sweets until the entire tree is covered. Then, leave the tree to set.
Pour your melted chocolate into a shallow baking pan.
Freeze the chocolate for about 1 hour until it's frozen solid, then use a knife to cut out hearts, stars, or triangles. Stick each shape on top of your desserts for a fun and tasty decoration.
Before getting into the techniques, you need to know what chocolate gives you the best results. The easiest chocolate to use that creates the smoothest decoration is couverture chocolate. It has better fluidity than regular chocolate thanks to its high cocoa butter content.
Growing your own chocolate tree is a relatively easy undertaking if you follow a few cultural requirements. The chocolate tree is a small-to-medium sized tree and grows as an understory species in the rainforest so it tolerates and even thrives under dappled light or partial sun conditions.
To make chocolate, cacao fruits are harvested when they are ripe and opened to remove the beans inside. The beans are fermented, dried, roasted, husked, and then ground up to make a thick paste called chocolate liquor which is the basis of all chocolate products.
Cacao trees can grow up to 30 feet tall and produce large pods that are the color and shape of small footballs. These pods contain 30 to 50 seeds—enough to make about two dark chocolate or seven milk chocolate bars!
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Prep time: 1 hr
