Description
Festive Christmas Tea Sandwiches featuring delicate white bread cut-outs shaped like Christmas trees and holly leaves, filled with creamy pineapple-flavored cream cheese and decorated with vibrant green piping and pomegranate seeds for a charming holiday treat.
Ingredients
Scale
Sandwich Base
- 16 slices thin white sandwich bread
Filling
- 8 oz cream cheese, divided (4 oz + 4 oz)
- 3 tablespoons crushed pineapple with the juice
- 2-3 tablespoons sour cream or mayonnaise
Decorations
- Green food colouring
- Pomegranate seeds for decorating
Instructions
- Cut Shapes: Cut out 8 Christmas tree shapes from the center of 8 slices of bread, making sure the cookie cutter size fits the slice centers. Then, cut 24 holly leaf shapes from the remaining 8 slices or as many as you can fit based on the cutter size.
- Prepare Pineapple Cream Cheese: Divide the cream cheese in half. Mix one half (4 oz) with the crushed pineapple and its juice. Adjust the amount of pineapple until you achieve your desired consistency. Spread this mixture evenly over one set of the bread cut-outs, then top with the remaining bread shapes to form sandwiches.
- Prepare Green Cream Cheese: Mix the remaining 4 oz cream cheese with sour cream or mayonnaise until the mixture is spreadable but holds its shape well. Gradually add green food colouring, starting with a tiny amount and increasing slowly until you reach the desired green tone.
- Decorate Holly Leaf Sandwiches: Using a piping bag fitted with a #67 tip, pipe a green strip along the center of each holly leaf sandwich. Place a couple of pomegranate seeds at one end of each strip to mimic holly berries.
- Decorate Christmas Tree Sandwiches: With the same #67 piping tip, pipe green strips from the top/center of the sandwich to each tip of the tree to mimic sweeping boughs of an evergreen. Position a pomegranate seed at the tip of each bough to resemble decorations.
- Chill and Serve: Keep the decorated sandwiches chilled until ready to serve. These sandwiches can be prepared a day ahead and stored airtight in the refrigerator overnight for convenience and freshness.
Notes
- Use thin white sandwich bread for best texture and shape definition.
- The pineapple cream cheese mixture can be adjusted to preferred sweetness or texture by adding more pineapple juice.
- If sour cream is not preferred, mayonnaise can be used alternatively for the green cream cheese.
- The cookie cutter sizes should fit well within the slice of bread to maximize the number of cut-outs.
- Prepare sandwiches no more than one day in advance to maintain freshness.
- Chilling the sandwiches before serving helps the cream cheese set and keeps decorations intact.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 sandwich
- Calories: 150
- Sugar: 3g
- Sodium: 200mg
- Fat: 9g
- Saturated Fat: 5g
- Unsaturated Fat: 3g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 15g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 4g
- Cholesterol: 25mg
