CHRISTMAS TREE SPINACH DIP BREADSTICKS

In today’s post: Learn how to turn refrigerated dough into an adorable Christmas tree with these spinach dipped stuffed breadsticks!

As you know, my favorite part about any holiday (after the meaningful stuff like family and togetherness, etc.) is the food. Actually, my favorite part of any given day just might be the food, but hey, to each her own. The Christmas season is especially fun because there are all sorts of opportunities for delicious little snacks that you generally don’t eat all year long. I mean, we’ve already gone through more cheeseballs in the past three weeks than we do for the entire rest of the year, and don’t even get me started on Lil’ Smokies! Anyway, I wanted to make a festive, but still easy, holiday snack you could take to any party, so I came up with these Christmas tree spinach dip breadsticks.

This is such a cute holiday appetizer idea! Breadsticks stuffed with spinach dip in the shape of a Christmas tree.

They start with a refrigerated pizza crust, the kind that comes in a tube, so they’re easy to make and take just over half an hour start to finish. And look how cute they turn out!

This gives you one large triangle and two smaller ones. Transfer the smaller triangles to a second piece of parchment paper, placing the long side edges together, to make another large triangle. The dough will stretch out a little as you move it around – no biggie, just gently tug it into the shape you want, pressing the two halves together in the middle. This will be the base of the breadsticks. I also gave the base a short little trunk.

Spread the spinach dip over the base.

Sprinkle on the remaining cheese, and then top with the first triangle of dough. You’ll likely have to tug at the dough a little bit to make sure it completely covers the base triangle.

Using a pizza cutter, cut slices from the middle to each edge about every inch down the triangle as shown below. Don’t slice all the way across; leave about an inch down the middle of the tree intact.

Grab each “slice” and twist it to form a tree shape, as shown below. For the top slice that’s very short you’ll just give it a half twist; as you go further down the tree and hit longer slices you’ll give them two or three full twists.

This gives you one large triangle and two smaller ones. Transfer the smaller triangles to a second piece of parchment paper, placing the long side edges together, to make another large triangle. The dough will stretch out a little as you move it around – no biggie, just gently tug it into the shape you want, pressing the two halves together in the middle. This will be the base of the breadsticks. I also gave the base a short little trunk.

Spread the spinach dip over the base.

Sprinkle on the remaining cheese, and then top with the first triangle of dough. You’ll likely have to tug at the dough a little bit to make sure it completely covers the base triangle.

Using a pizza cutter, cut slices from the middle to each edge about every inch down the triangle as shown below. Don’t slice all the way across; leave about an inch down the middle of the tree intact.

Grab each “slice” and twist it to form a tree shape, as shown below. For the top slice that’s very short you’ll just give it a half twist; as you go further down the tree and hit longer slices you’ll give them two or three full twists.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 22 minutes until the bottom is completely cooked through. The top is going to get nice and browned, but make sure to check that the bottom is cooked through. If you are cooking on a heavy cookie sheet, like I did, you may want to cook this on the lower rack in your oven.

Once out of the oven you can brush the breadsticks with melted butter, garlic salt, and seasonings.

Then serve it up while it’s still warm. Everyone can tear off a breadstick or two to enjoy.

Source:itsalwaysautumn.com

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