O Christmas Appetizer Tree
Sure to impress your family and friends as a centerpiece of your party or buffet! You can customize to your taste, using cheese, meat, olives, cherry tomatoes, or any antipasto item that you can skewer with a toothpick.
Equipment
- Styrofoam cone
- toothpicks
- floral pins
Ingredients
- Styrofoam cone wrapped in plastic wrap
- 5 – 6 collard leaves
- floral pins
- box of toothpicks
- 21 oz. jar Spanish olives
- 1 container of Kalamata/black pitted olives from the olive bar at the grocery store
- Cheddar Cheese cubes about 1 lb.
- Colby Jack Cheese cubes about 1 lb.
- 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
- Rosemary sprigs
- Star cocktail pick for a tree topper
Instructions
- Start with a floral styrofoam cone, The styrofoam cones come in assorted sizes so you can scale this appetizer tree up or down to suit your crowd. Mine was 4 7/8 inches x 17 7/8 inches. The cones are also available in green, but the green was out of stock when I went to buy my cone.
- Wrap your styrofoam cone in plastic wrap so the styrofoam doesn’t come in contact with your food.
- To camouflage the cone, wrap it in collard leaves, so the white of the styrofoam didn’t show once the tree is assembled.
- Remove the large stems from the collards before wrapping them around the cone, overlapping and attaching them with floral pins.
- Once wrapped, start with the cherry tomatoes as red ornaments, and place them on the tree with toothpicks spacing them evenly on the tree.
- Add your other ‘edibles’ with a toothpick. You can place them in rows if you like or in a more random fashion. I tucked sprigs of rosemary in between some of the spaces for some fragrant Christmas greenery.
Notes
- Use a tube of denture adhesive cream (like Fixodent) and squeeze some on the bottom of the cone to adhere it to the cake plate to prevent it from toppling or shifting.
- Use any kind of leaf lettuce to wrap your cone. Kale would give your tree a pretty texture if you leave some of the areas exposed in between your edible decorations.
- I made this tree appetizer a day in advance, wrapped it plastic wrap and placed it on the screened porch where it stayed nice and cool until ready to serve.