These Christmas Brownies are rich, fudgy, and topped with festive holiday cheer! Made from scratch (or with your favorite boxed mix), they’re decorated with homemade vanilla frosting and colorful peppermint candies.

Nothing says “holiday baking” like a batch of fudgy, festive Christmas Brownies! My favorite brownies are perfectly rich, chewy, and topped with plenty of peppermint candies. You could also decorate them with red and green sprinkles or M&Ms, they’re guaranteed to be the star of your dessert table.

 

Christmas Brownies are one of those easy recipes you’ll find yourself making year after year. They come together quickly (you can even use a box mix as a shortcut), they travel well for parties and cookie exchanges, and are easy to customize with your favorite toppings.

Ingredients Needed

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• Unsweetened Chocolate
• Vegetable Oil
• Egg
• Granulated Sugar
• All-Purpose Flour
• Andes Peppermint Candies
• Butter
• Powdered Sugar
• Milk
• Vanilla Extract

How To Make Christmas Brownies

1. Make Brownies. Mix together melted chocolate and oil until smooth. Beat in eggs and sugar until really well incorporated. Stir in flour until it is just combined. Fold in chopped peppermint candy.
2. Bake. Spread the brownies into a lined or greased 8-inch square pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely.
3. Make Frosting. Mix together the softened butter with powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk until you get a spreadable consistency. You can add more sugar or milk to get to the consistency you need.
4. Decorate. Once the brownies have cooled completely spread the frosting over the top and sprinkle the remaining peppermint candies over the frosting.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

• Crackly Top. If you want that crackly top for brownies, the key is to really mix the eggs and sugar together thoroughly. You don’t need to use a mixer, a spatula works great, just really use some muscle and beat it well.
• Over Mixing. Be careful when adding the flour and peppermint candies, you don’t want to over mix or it can change the texture of the brownies. So a few white streaks when you add in the peppermint candy is ok, they will be incorporated by the time you are done.
• Shortcut. Yep, you can absolutely use whatever your favorite box mix brownies are for these, or even frosting. I personally always use my Homemade Brownies and Homemade Vanilla Frosting, because it really is just a few ingredients and I think it is worth the extra effort.
• Decorating. I used the Andes Peppermint Crunch Candies for these. You can usually find a bag of just crushed candy or small individual wrapped bars that you can chop up. You can really use whatever peppermint candy you like, I like these over candy canes because they are white chocolate and not crunchy. But you could also use Christmas M&M’s or sprinkles or anything else red or green you like.

Storage

I like to bake brownies using parchment paper so I can lift them out of the pan and cut them into slices easily. To store I lift the parchment paper back into the pan and just cover with foil. They will last for 3-4 days at room temperature.

More Fun Christmas Recipes

• Chocolate Snowball Cookies
• Santa Hat Brownies
• Peppermint Oreo Truffles
• Puff Pastry Christmas Tree
• Sugar Cookie Chex Mix