Santa Buttercream Frosting Board: A Festive Dessert Board for Your Holiday Gatherings

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Tools & Ingredients

To Make the Buttercream:

• 1 cup butter
• 3.5 cups powdered sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• Food coloring – I mixed Wilton peach and ChefMaster Fleshtone

Here’s someoOther frosting recipes you may want to try with this board:

• Healthy Vegan Cake Frosting – it’s cashew based and refined sugar free
• Italian Meringue Frosting – for a less sweet, silkier frosting that doesn’t crust
• Protein Frosting – it’s made with cream cheese and Greek yogurt for a healthier, high-protein frosting. Surround it with some of my healthy high protein treats like my Protein Sugar Cookie Bars!
• Peanut Butter Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting Recipe – naturally colored with peanut butter for the face so you don’t have to use dye if you want to color the face.

To Make the Santa Face:

• Skin tone & white buttercream
• White marshmallows & strawberries for the hat or red & white buttercream
• Coconut for the beard
• M&Ms or other candy-coated chocolates for the face

To Make the Rest of the Dessert Board:

• Assorted cookies, crackers and festive treats. I used:
• Homemade sugar cookies, cut out into holiday shapes, but you can use store-bought as well!
• Shortbread cookies
• Marshmallows
• Powdered donuts
• Chocolate covered Christmas tree pretzels
• Biscoff cookies (of course! If you have been following me long enough, you know about my Biscoff obsession!)
• Home made rice krispie squares, but you can use store-bought as well!
• Graham crackers
• Christmas Chocolates – I used Snowmen shaped ones
  
  Some Other Ideas to Add to the Board are:
• Brownies
• Wafers
• Oreos
• Other Christmas chocolates
• Gingerbread men cookies
• Plain pretzels
• Cake pieces

Tools You’ll Want to Have on Hand:

• Large Serving Board
• Parchment Paper
• Large Mixing Bowl and Electric Mixer or Stand Mixer
• Measuring Cups and Spoons
• Icing Spatula
• Piping bag or zip-top bag

How to Make the Santa Buttercream Frosting Board

Step 1: Prepare the Buttercream

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy.
• Gradually add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Add a pinch of salt, vanilla extract, and heavy cream. Beat until the mixture is smooth and fluffy.
• Divide the buttercream into separate bowls and add food coloring to create the desired colors for Santa’s face. I mixed Wilton peach and Color Mill Nude. If you are using buttercream for his hat and beard, mix keep some white and mix some red.
• TIP FOR WHITE ICING: Using a toothpick, add a tiny speck of purple to cancel out the yellow in the buttercream. Start small. If you add too much, it will turn it a purple hue.
• TIP FOR RED ICING: Red can sometimes be difficult to make. Colour your icing pink first, and then add red. Use a good brand gel icing like Americolor Super Red.

Step 2: Create Santa’s Face:

• I recommend using Parchment paper under Santa’s face and the strawberries so that you don’t stain the board. To be extra safe, cover the entire board in parchment paper. I used a parchment 8 inch round under Santa’s face.
• Fill a piping bag (or sandwich bag if you don’t have any on hand!) with the skin tone icing, cut about a 1/4 inch off of the tip and pipe a half circle for Santa’s face – see image above.
• Using an icing spatula, smooth the buttercream.
• Arrange marshmallows in a curved line at the top of the buttercream to create Santa’s hat trim.
• Place strawberries to form Santa’s hat (or use red and white buttercream.)
• Sprinkle coconut over the beard area for a fluffy texture.
• Use M&Ms or other candies to create Santa’s eyes and nose. I didn’t create a mouth, but feel free to make it your own and play around with the design!

Step 3: Assemble the Surrounding Treats:

Arrange your assorted cookies, crackers and festive treats of choice around Santa’s face. I used homemade sugar cookies cut out into holiday shapes, but you can use store-bought as well! Shortbread cookies, Marshmallows, Powdered donuts, Chocolate covered Christmas tree pretzels, Biscoff Cookies and Christmas crack (of course! If you have been following me long enough, you know about my Biscoff obsession!), Home made rice krispie squares, but you can use store-bought as well! Graham crackers and Christmas Chocolates.

More Dessert Ideas For Your Buttercream Frosting Board

• Biscoff Toffee Crack – a delicious variation on regular Christmas crack using Biscoff spread and cookies.
• Christmas Reindeer Crack Toffee – Add adorable reindeer-faced Toffee pieces to make this frosting board even more fun for kids!
• Easy Hot Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff Stuffed Cookies – like a warm cup of hot cocoa in cookie form!
• Nutella Stuffed Kinder Bueno Cookies
• Cannoli Cookies – an Italian cookie classic for any holiday dessert platter.
• Easy Biscoff Puff Pastry Christmas Tree – doesn’t have to be a tree, you can cut it into other fun holiday shapes to go around your frosting board.
• Easy, Homemade Vanilla Bean Marshmallows – my boys love making our own marshmallows to add to the board!
• Gluten-Free Espresso Martini Brownies – a fun brownie dessert for the adults!
• Cadbury Mini Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies – change these up by using Christmas M&M’s in place of Mini Eggs to make these cookies more festive.
• Healthy No-Bake Samoa Cookies (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar-Free) – a super easy and delicious allergy friendly addition!
• Chocolate Peppermint Protein Balls – they’re like peppermint bark meets protein bites — chocolatey, minty, and refined sugar-free!

Frequently Asked Questions

More Christmas Recipes You’ll Love

• Irresistible Biscoff Toffee Crack
• Christmas Reindeer Crack Toffee (Easy Saltine Toffee Recipe for Kids)
• Easy Biscoff Puff Pastry Christmas Tree
• Easy Hot Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff Stuffed Cookies
• Easy 5-Ingredient Biscoff Chocolate Quinoa Clusters (No Bake Christmas Candy Recipe)

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