Christmas tree, Swiss brioche style

Put the sifted flour into the bowl of a stand mixer or a mixing bowl.

Warm 10 cl of milk to dissolve the yeast in it.

Pour the milk and yeast into the flour and mix a little.

In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and the remaining milk.

Pour this mixture into the first one and knead for a good ten minutes (if you have a mixer, sit back and watch it work ^^).

Put the dough in a bowl and leave it to rise somewhere warm for two hours (for me, in the oven on the defrost setting at 25°C).

Cut the dough into three and roll out the three pieces one after another, so you have enough surface to make your tree.

Cut a fir-tree shape out of baking parchment.

Here are my measurements, though they make a big tree and I couldn’t find a single dish large enough to hold it… it even hung slightly over the edge of the oven tray: 40 cm tall, 30 cm wide at the base, 5 cm wide for the trunk and 3.5 cm high for the trunk.

Lay a sheet of baking parchment on the oven tray and one rolled-out piece of dough.

Cover it with pastry cream and chocolate chips.

Lay the second rolled-out piece on top and cover it too with cream and chips.

Lay on the third.

Trim the dough again if needed to get a nice triangle, not forgetting to leave room for the trunk of the tree.

Cut 6 notches down each side, as in the photo opposite, and roll them up on themselves.

It should look like this ^^.

Cut stars out of the leftover dough and arrange them on the tree.

Put the tree into a cold oven and set it to bake for 30 minutes at 170°C.

Decorate it as it comes out of the oven with M&M’s and dust it with icing sugar.