A variation of the typical Greek delicacy, this chocolate baklava. It’s easy to make but appears to have taken hours of labor. It looks amazing and tastes fantastic.
| Prep Time: | 45 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 brownies |
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup shortening
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 3 fluid ounces heavy cream, or more as needed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 drops green gel food coloring, or as desired
- edible candy decorations
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8-inch square pan.
- Melt butter in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat in flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile cream shortening for frosting until fluffy. Gradually add confectioner’s sugar and continue beating until creamy and well blended. Add 3 ounces cream, vanilla, and salt and blend on low speed until moistened. Add up to 1 more ounce cream if necessary. Beat on high speed until frosting is fluffy.
- Transfer 1/2 of the frosting into another bowl and mix in green gel food coloring to get your preferred shade of green.
- Use a tree-shaped cookie cutter to cut out 8 Christmas trees from the pan of cooled brownies.
- Pipe green and white frostings onto cooled brownies to look like snow-covered trees. Decorate with candies.
- You may get more trees if you use a knife to cut out the Christmas trees, instead of a cookie cutter.
- Use candy decorations such as white jimmies, silver dragées, and miniature candy-coated chocolate pieces (such as M&M’s(R)).
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 765 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 96 g |
| Cholesterol | 92 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 17 g |
| Sodium | 186 mg |
| Sugars | 87 g |
| Fat | 43 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |