Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan and line a 9″ Square baking tray with parchment paper.
Melt together the butter, and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, on the microwave for 1-2 minutes until melted. Leave to the side to cool to room temperature!
Using an electric whisk/stand mixer, whisk together the eggs & caster sugar for a few minutes until the colour has turned pale, is very mousse-like, and is double the original volume of the amount of eggs + sugar! You will know it's done because when you lift the whisk up out of the mix it should leave a trail for a couple of seconds before disappearing!
When whisked, pour the cooled chocolate mixture over eggs and fold together carefully. It might take some time, but be patient – you don’t want to knock out the air you made up on the previous step!
Once completely combined, sift the cocoa powder and plain flour on top of the chocolate mix and then fold together again – still be careful to not knock out the air!
Once combined well, fold through the chocolate chips and pour into the prepared tin – bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes! Once baked, leave to cool in the tin completely.
Once cooled, cut the brownies into the tree shapes – I cut the tray in half, and then triangle the two halves – and eat all the offcuts. Carefully insert the candy cane sticks into the base of the brownies (like shown!)
Cream together the butter and icing sugar to create a delicious buttercream
Add some green food colouring until you get to your desired decoration colour!
Transfer to a large piping bag with your chosen piping tip (I used a 2D closed star tip!) and pipe some zigzag lines on to your brownies
Add some bauble sprinkles and sweets or whatever you are using and dont forget your yellow star (I used an M&M) at the top of the brownie. Enjoy!
Notes
I used regular candy canes and snapped the tops off so that I just used the straight part – I used the off cuts of the candy canes in my Christmas bark
These will last in an airtight container for 1 week, but will make excellent little gifts this Christmas!
This recipe was originally based on BBC Good Food recipe with my own changes and decoration!