Christmas Treats With Strawberries — 4 Fruity Festive Recipes

Many typical dishes — sweet or savory — form part of our Christmas and winter traditions. Fresh fruit dishes are usually the one exception. However, after watching the following video, you’ll know how to conjure up ingenious, amusing dessert bites using everyone’s favorite berry. These are guaranteed to put a smile on your face!

Recipe 1: Mini Santa Clauses

You’ll need:

• strawberries
• 3.4 fl oz whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar 
• black food coloring (or dark sugar pearls)

Here’s how:

1. Slice the stalks off the strawberries and set them upside down on the flat surface you have created. Cut the berries in half horizontally and take the top half away. 
2. Beat the cream and the vanilla sugar together until the cream is stiff. Take a tablespoon of cream and color it with the black food coloring. Put the rest of the cream, which should still be white, in a piping bag. 
3. Squirt the cream onto the lower half of the strawberries to create a layer about an inch thick, then put the top halves back — on top of the cream. Using the the black cream, dot two little eyes on the layer of cream. Some more cream on the tips of the strawberries creates the bobbles for the hats. Finally, two more small dabs of cream on the lower half of the strawberries provide the buttons for your strawberry Santas’ jackets. 
   

   

Recipe 2: Christmas Tree Cupcakes

You’ll need:

For the muffins:

• 2.6 oz sugar 
• 1.2 oz flour
• 1.2 oz cocoa 
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch baking powder 
• 4.4 oz dark chocolate couverture
• 3.5 oz butter
• 2 eggs

For the decoration:

• strawberries
• 2.6 oz butter
• 2.6 oz powdered sugar
• 3.5 oz cream cheese
• Food coloring (blue and yellow, or green)
• Fondant (white, red and yellow; or you can use sugar pearls and gold sugar stars)

Here’s how:

1. Put the dry ingredients in a bowl. Melt the chocolate and add it to the rest of the moist ingredients. Mix everything together into a batter and portion it out into the molds of a mini muffin pan. Bake the muffins with the heat on above and below for about 15 minutes in an oven set to 320°F.
2. Beat the butter with an electric whisk and add the icing sugar while stirring continuously. Now add the cream cheese a spoonful at a time, before dyeing the mixture with the food coloring. Put the cream in a piping bag with a star-shaped nozzle and squeeze out a circle of icing on each muffin. Place a strawberry on top of each one. Now squeeze out little blobs in rows around each strawberry, until they are fully covered. 
3. Shape the white and red fondant into small balls to use as decorations on the trees. Press some of the yellow fondant flat and cut out tiny stars to use as tree toppers. If you don’t like the shape, you can always roll it out and try again. As soon as you have a star shape you like, you can place it on top of the fondant and cut around it as a template for the other stars.  Alternatively, you can use tweezers to set sugar pearls on the trees as decorations.
   

   

Recipe 3: Santa Hats

You’ll need:

• strawberries
• 3.5 oz melted white chocolate couverture 
• 3.5 oz coconut flakes
• white mini marshmallows 

Here’s how:

1. Slice the stalks off the berries. Now dip the chopped end of the strawberry first in the couverture, then in the coconut flakes. Next, dip the mini marshmallows lightly in the couverture, then place them on the tips of the strawberries.
   

   

Recipe 4: Christmas Tree

You’ll need:

• 10.6 oz melted dark chocolate couverture
• 2⅕ lbs strawberries
• 3.5 oz powdered sugar
• some mint leaves

Here’s how:

1. Cut out a quarter-circle shape from a sheet of craft paper by drawing an arc between two of the diametrically opposed corners. Curve the paper into a cone shape, tape it together, then cover it with baking parchment. 
2. Cover the cone completely with a thick layer of chocolate. It shouldn’t be so much that it drips off the paper, but at the same time, none of the paper should show through.
3. Slice the stems off all the strawberries and place them, cut side first, in the chocolate before it sets. Work in rows around the cone until you get to the top. You can also dip the strawberries in chocolate a little before adding them to the cone. Finally, decorate with a few mint leaves in between the strawberries and then dust your fruity festive tree with some powdered sugar.

Even if the strawberry season is long past, these berries often continue to find their sweet way into many supermarkets. And anyone who has the chance to snatch up another punnet of strawberries should make the most of this tasty fruit and create something really special.