Totally Edible Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant

Recipe: Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant Recipe »

Learn how to make a beautiful Chocolate Mendiant Christmas tree using milk and dark chocolate stacked into a festive layered tree. Decorated with dried fruit, nuts and sparkly sprinkles, it's the perfect make-ahead Christmas dessert or gift!

About This Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant

These chocolate trees are a gorgeous Christmas gift and are simple to make but effective. They're based on French Mendiants that are stacked on top of each other to create a layered chocolate tree.

Mendiant are French chocolates that are popular around Christmas. They are a chocolate disc topped with fruit and nuts - usually four are used to represent the four mendicant religious orders.

I have seen these available in many chocolate stores and they are really easy it was to make and don't require any special chocolate moulds!

To eat this tree, just take one disc of chocolate per person!

Video How To Make Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant

Video: How to Make Chocolate Trees

Ingredients For Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant

Milk and dark chocolate - Use your favourite chocolate whether its a couverture chocolate or a regular supermarket chocolate. If the latter, I recommend using chocolate bits not melts. Chocolate bits use cocoa butter while chocolate melts use vegetable fat. I am not a fan of the flavour of chocolate melts and it's ok to use them for dipping cookies etc but not when the flavour of the chocolate is so important.

Coconut oil - Use extra virgin coconut oil to help make the melted chocolate more liquid and easier to work with.

Dried Fruit and Nuts - I used cranberries, pistachios, pepitas, dried apricot, pecan pieces, goji berries and metallic cachous/sprinkles. You only need a tablespoon of each to make one chocolate tree. However once you buy all of these ingredients (luckily we had them all from homemade granola) you may as well make multiple trees!

Chocolate bar - To add height between each layer of chocolate, we use a 1cm/0.4inch thick piece of dark chocolate from a chocolate bar.

Chocolate stars or baubles - You can find these in specialty stores. I used some glitter chocolate baubles I bought from The Essential Ingredient.

Tips For Making Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant

1 - If the weather is very hot where you are, consider using just dark chocolate and not milk chocolate. Dark chocolate has the highest melting point so it is great for sculpting and decorating. Then it's milk chocolate and then white chocolate which has the lowest melting point. For this reason, I don't recommend using white chocolate.

2 - Use any sort of dried fruit or nuts for the mendiant toppings. If the fruit or nuts are large (like pecans) then break it up into smaller pieces.

3 - I bought some culinary tweezers for this which work well for the sprinkles.

4 - If it's hot where you are and the chocolate starts getting soft, make sure to put the tree on a tray so that you can easily move it straight to the fridge without touching the tree.

5 - Hot hands are the enemy of chocolate (and pastry) making. Unfortunately I have hot hands (people have either naturally cold or hot hands) so I use cotton gloves when it comes to lifting the tree or doing anything major to the tree.

6 - I use a cookie cutter set like this to trace the rounds - it is fluted on one side and plain on the other. It comes in very handy!

If you're looking for other Christmas tree desserts inspo try this Christmas Tree Pavlova, this easy Pandoro Tree or Macaron Christmas Tree!

Chocolate Christmas Tree Mendiant Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 30 minutes plus chilling time

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Makes: 1 Chocolate Tree, around 400g/14ozs

Ingredients Needed

• 200g/7ozs milk chocolate
• 200g/7ozs dark chocolate
• 2 teaspoons coconut oil
• 20g/0.7ozs cranberries
• 20g/0.7ozs pistachio
• 20g/0.7ozs pepitas
• 20g/0.7ozs finely diced dried apricot
• 20g/0.7ozs pecan pieces
• 20g/0.7ozs goji berries
• 1 tablespoon metallic cachous/sprinkles
• 50g/1.7oz chocolate bar (1cm/0.4inch thick)
• Chocolate stars or baubles
• You will also need a 6-7 piece round cutter set

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 PREPARE - Trace the circles on the parchment using a marker. Flip over so you are using the side without the marker.

Step 2 MELT - Melt dark chocolate in 30 second bursts on 60% heat in the microwave or in a double boiler. Stir in the coconut oil well. Using a teaspoon fill in the circles trying to keep the chocolate fairly even in thickness. You won't need all of the chocolate and reserve 1-2 tablespoons.

Step 3 TOP - Add the toppings around the edge excluding the centre. Refrigerate until set, around 20 minutes. Remove the discs from the parchment and place in the fridge.

Step 4 MELT 2 - Melt the milk chocolate in 30 second bursts on 50% heat in the microwave or in a double boiler. Stir in the coconut oil well. Using a teaspoon fill in the circles trying to keep the chocolate fairly even in thickness. Again, you won't need all of the chocolate and reserve 1-2 tablespoons. Milk chocolate is a bit softer than dark chocolate so leave this to set for 30 minutes or until hard.

Step 5 PAIR - Gently remove the milk chocolate discs from the parchment. Remelt some of the extra chocolate and dab some on the largest milk chocolate disc. Place the decorated dark chocolate disc on top and repeat with milk and dark chocolate pairs. Refrigerate for 10 minutes until set.

Step 6 ASSEMBLE - Secure two pieces of chocolate on the largest mendiant pair with melted chocolate on the top and bottom. Stack the chocolate discs on top of each other starting with the largest. If the stacking seems a bit wobbly (it may feel that way halfway up, refrigerate the tree to set the chocolate). Finish with the star or bauble on top affixed with melted chocolate. Store in the fridge if it is hot.

Personal Note