Christmas Tree Rice Krispie Treats

Christmas tree Rice Krispie treats are SO simple to make and kids adore the fun shape and color. If you’re scrambling for a last minute holiday treat, these are it!

Last minute Christmas parties or school events… they happen to all of us. We're not going to lie; this food blogger often defaults to Rice Krispie treats. They’re SO straightforward to mix (ridiculously straightforward), they’re okay for our nut-free kids, and they’re relatively neat.

Meaning when our toddlers eat them, we won’t have to change their clothes. Or their teacher won’t have to spend 10 minutes cleaning up the table. And chairs. And floor.

We've seen a couple versions of Rice Krispie treat Christmas trees, but they’ve all been cone-shaped. These are way easier to make, and we'd argue they are just as cute. It’s as straightforward as dyeing them green, cutting them into triangles, and sticking a pretzel stick in them.

The hardest part is getting the pretzel stick to not break.

Seriously, that’s the hardest part. We think you can handle this. Gentle but firm pressure is the key to the pretzel sticks. If you break any, you have two options: a shorter tree trunk or a rich pretzel snack.

We'd say this is a win-win situation, wouldn’t you?

If you can’t quite imagine how to cut the pan of Rice Krispie treats, we made this little graphic to help. You end up with a couple of half trees to use for quality control and taste testing. It’s still way easier (and way less waste) than cutting them with a cookie cutter.

Recipe Note

Yield will depend on how skinny you cut your trees. You should be able to cut 16-20 trees from one pan.

Our kids adore these – they are absolutely obsessed. The cookies do turn the kids’ mouths green, but that’s part of the fun! They also turn other things green but maybe we won’t talk about that? Okay, good.

If you’ve got a few extra minutes on your hands and you want to impress the other parents at the school Christmas party, give snowmen Oreo Pops a try. Holiday Oreos give it a fun and festive color.

If you’re looking for more of a chocolate fix, try Christmas tree brownie bites. They start with a boxed brownie mix so making them is seriously straightforward.

These Santa hat brownies are pretty close to the cutest thing we've ever seen. Okay – reindeer cupcakes definitely are putting up some strong competition for cutest holiday treat. Let’s just eat both and call it a tie, okay?

If you don’t have time to fuss over whimsical treats, good ol’ puppy chow (Muddy Buddies) is always a popular treat and so are plain Rice Krispie treats. Sprinkle them with multi-colored sprinkles and they look pretty festive. Rolo pretzels are festive and only take three ingredients (and about five minutes!).

Now there’s no excuse for not being that mom that brings darling treats into school. Well, besides kids, sleep, and general life craziness. Those are all fantastic excuses. But you can definitely handle these adorable Rice Krispie treat Christmas trees.

You can do it!

PS: This gel food coloring is the type we like to use.

We originally developed this recipe as a freelancer for Food Fanatic.

• Yield: 20 cookies
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 5 minutes
• Total: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 pkg. (10 oz.) marshmallows ( about 40 regular sized, or 4 cups mini marshmallows)
• green food coloring
• 6 cups Rice Krispies toasted rice cereal
• sprinkles
• 20 small pretzel sticks

Method

1. Grease or spray a 9×13-inch pan and set aside.
2. In a large pan, melt butter and marshmallows over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Once it almost smooth and melted, add green food coloring little by little until you achieve desired tree color. Once completely smooth and perfectly green, remove from heat and immediately stir in Rice Krispies. Continue to stir until all the cereal is coated.
3. Press evenly into prepared pan (we always spray our hand with nonstick cooking spray to do this, but you can also use a piece of wax paper). Immediately sprinkle with sprinkles. Let cool for at least 30 minutes.
4. Make a cut down the middle of the pan (the long way). Then, cut each of those rows into triangles (you should have 4 scraps leftover, one at each side of each row).
5. Insert pretzel stick into bottom of triangles to form trunk.

Notes

Normally, we advise pressing Rice Krispie treats into the pan lightly. However, with these trees, press them in a little more firmly so they hold together well and keep their shape.