This stunning Christmas Dessert Board features a homemade buttercream frosting tinted festive green for dipping your favorite cookies and holiday treats. It’s bound to be the talk of your Christmas desserts.

How to Choose a Charcuterie Board

It’s important to make sure the board you choose is food safe and able to be used with wet and dry foods. If it’s only dry food safe, place wet foods such as fruit, frostings and candies in pretty bowls or small plates. You can also line the board with parchment paper, colorful foil or food safe paper to add color and visual interest.

Ingredients to Make a Christmas Dessert Board Recipe

How do you make a Christmas Dessert Board? The beauty of these types of Christmas charcuterie board is, that you can fill it with whatever goodies you like. It’s especially great for those who may not be inclined to bake, yet at the same time it’s impressive and guests will love to pick and choose what they would like to dip in the gorgeous green homemade buttercream frosting. The amount of items you’ll need will depend on the size of the board used. You can add or take away to create your own unique dessert board. Ingredients you’ll need to make the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting: (Scroll down for the full printable recipe card.)

Sugar: Three cups of powdered sugar sifted to remove any lumps.
Butter: One cup softened salted butter.
Flavoring: Two teaspoons vanilla extract adds creamy floral notes and almond extract for a hint of nuttiness.
Food Coloring: Green gel food coloring. I chose a bright green, but you can use an alternate shade of green.

How to Make the Best Christmas Dessert Board Recipe

To Make the Buttercream Frosting: In a medium bowl beat butter with vanilla and almond extracts for 2 minutes or just until light yellow and fluffy.
Add Powdered Sugar: Lower the speed of the mixer and gradually add the powdered sugar.
Add Food Coloring: Once all is added, beat on high until light and fluffy. Scrap the bowl, then use a toothpick to swirl green gel into the buttercream. Beat with the mixer, repeating until the desired depth of color is reached.
Place into a Piping Bag: Prepare a piping bag with a large Wilton 1M piping tip (or similar large open star tip) and fill the piping bag with green buttercream frosting.
Pipe onto Board: Pipe the buttercream into the middle of the board.
Assemble the Christmas Dessert Charcuterie Board: Arrange all of the sweet treats you’ve chosen around the buttercream center and enjoy!

Tips for Making a Christmas Dessert Board with Buttercream Frosting

Kitchen Tools You’ll Need: Measuring cups and spoons, mixing bowls, rubber spatula, electric stand mixer or hand mixer, piping bags, Wilton 1M open star tip, and a charcuterie board at least 15-20 inches in diameter.
Alternative Board: You could adapt using a large cutting board or a large tray, if you don’t have a charcuterie board.
Allow Time for the Butter to Soften: When using cold butter straight from the fridge to make the buttercream, you can use the soften feature on your microwave to speed up the process. You could also gently heat on high in short bursts, for a few seconds. This will ensure it combines smoothly with the powdered sugar.
Tips for Assembling a Dessert Charcuterie Board: Always start with the biggest items first. For example, the buttercream wreath design should go onto the middle of the board first, then the largest cookies should be placed on the outer rim of the board.
Fill in with Smaller Items: Lastly, fill in with the smallest items like candy and marshmallows to fill in any gaps.
Alternate and Add Pops of Color: It’s also best to alternate colors in the layout For example, don’t put two dark items beside each other like brownies and chocolate cookies.
Add Variety and Texture: You can simply tuck tiny bowls of Christmas M&M’s around the board for festive colors, decorated Christmas cookies, peppermint bark, cubed brownies and a variety of candies and fudge.
When to Serve: This dessert board is fabulous for any gathering whether it’s a black tie event or a casual gathering with family and friends. It’s bound to be the talk of the dessert table at your holiday parties!

Recipe Variations

Gel Coloring: For this green color, I used the brand Chefmaster Liqua-gel in the color Leaf Green. Gel coloring works best as it doesn’t add any additional liquid to the buttercream frosting. You can use any brand of gel coloring found at your local craft store, big box store such as Target or Walmart or baking supply store.
What Cookies, Cake and Sweets Work Best for Dipping into the Buttercream? First of all, it’s fine to use store-bought treats. The best cookies and sweets for dipping into the buttercream are ones that are firm enough to not fall apart in the dip. Any sorts of cookies or brownies would work.
Use a Firm Cake: For cake pieces, a simple cake mix cake probably isn’t firm enough (it would crumble on the board) but something firmer like my Million Dollar Pound Cake cut into small cubes would work well. Choose items that won’t dry out quickly once they are cut up and placed on the board. Marshmallows would be a great addition!
Add Salty to Balance the Sweet: You can add chocolate-covered pretzels, pretzel crisps and plain potato chips for a savory option.
Cookies: Use sugar cookies or any homemade or store-bought cookies that you like.
Fruit: You could add cherries, pear slices, grapes, raspberries and sugared cranberries for a festive pop of color for a festive holiday dessert board.
Nuts: Add pecans, almonds, cashews or peanuts for crunch.
Sprinkles: I used candy to decorate the buttercream to look like a wreath. You could use holiday sprinkles, instead.

Storage and Leftovers

Buttercream: You can make the buttercream 1-2 days in advance, then pipe it onto the board and assemble the board just before serving. You’ll need to use a mixer to whip the buttercream before loading it into a piping bag.
Sweet Treats: Store the sweets and candies separately in plastic storage bagsy. Reference the packages of store-bought treats for shelf life.
Freezer: You can freeze buttercream for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge then whip with a hand mixer or a stand mixer to fluff and blend before using.

More Christmas Dessert Recipes to Make

Some easy sweet ideas you may consider making for your desserts this holiday season and some could even be added to this board.

Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Crackers are an old school favorite everyone loves.
Gingerbread Cupcakes are frosted with an eggnog infused cream cheese frosting.
No bake Bourbon Balls.
White Chocolate Snack Mix just like my Grandma used to make.
Triple Chocolate Potato Chip Bark works great for gift giving.
Santa Hat Brownies will delight kids of all ages.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Haystacks are sweet and salty.
Fruitcake Cookies from Noshing with the Nolands.

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