DIY: Very Berry Holiday Tree & Ornament

Driscoll’s Very Berry DIYs

This year take a fresh new approach to holiday crafts and make them edible! This Very Berry Holiday Tree created by cookbook author Tish Boyle is the ideal holiday ‘DIY’ that let’s you get your craft on and save money too – in under an hour. When the folks at Driscoll’s shared these DIY ideas with me, I knew I had to share them with you!  Super delicious and easy to make, they are fun gifts for neighbors and friends too.

VERY BERRY HOLIDAY TREE

Makes one table centerpiece

Special equipment:
1 green Styrofoam cone (measuring 4-5 inches in diameter at the base and 12 inches high)
1 box of toothpicks

Supplies:
4 one pound containers of fresh Driscoll’s strawberries
1 bunch fresh mint
1 slice from a carambola fruit (also known as star fruit)*

*Note: If you can’t find a carambola, you can use a 1-inch star-shaped cookie cutter to cut out a star shape from a mango slice instead.

Directions:
1. Wash the strawberries and blot them dry with paper towels. Pull off the green stem from each strawberry. Reserve a perfect strawberry for the top of the ‘tree’.

2. Push a toothpick halfway into the side of the cone, about 1/2 inch from the bottom edge. Secure a strawberry to the toothpick, piercing it through the stem end. Secure another strawberry right next to the first one. Continue securing strawberries to the cone in circular rows up to its top, covering the cone completely. Secure the reserved strawberry to the top of the tree.

3. Remove some mint leaves from the bunch of mint and tuck them between the berries, placing them at about 3-inch intervals.

4. Secure the star-shaped carambola or mango slice to the top of the cone using a toothpick.

About Tish Boyle
Tish Boyle is editor in chief of Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Design magazines. A graduate of Smith College and La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris, she has been a caterer, pastry chef, and food stylist. She is the author of The Good Cookie and Diner Desserts, and coauthor of Simply Sensational Desserts (IACP Award Winner), Chocolate Passion, and the Grand Finales series of books.

STRAWBERRY HOLIDAY ORNAMENT

Items Needed for Ornament
1 6” round Styrofoam ball
1 bolt of green grosgrain ribbon
1 package of decorative pearl florist pins
3 pints of Driscoll’s strawberries
Holiday greenery
Florist wire
Cutting knife

Directions:
1. Wrap the green ribbon around the Styrofoam ball, so that it creates 4 sections of the ball.
2. Leave enough ribbon to tie if off in a bow for hanging the ornament later.
3. Using the cutting knife, remove all the stems from the Driscoll’s berries making certain to them along a flat plane.
4. Secure each individual berry to the ball, cut side in, using the decorative pearl florist pins
5. Fill in the openings with additional decorative pearl florist pin.
6. Secure the holiday greenery to the top of the ornament with florist wire.
7. Suspend in an open doorway