Christmas Tree Croquembouche

If you feel like holiday desserts should be showstoppers and you love trying to impress your family and friends, then this Christmas tree croquembouche is for you. A traditional croquembouche is a tower of custard-filled cream puffs held together by caramel. This version isn't far off, but has a few shortcuts (so you can focus on the decorating). To make things ever so slightly easier, we used whipped cream to fill the cream puffs instead. Thanks to this shortcut, this might be even easier to assemble than your actual Christmas tree.

To top the tree off, we used a sugar cookie star for a traditional tree topper look, but feel free to use a different shape or skip it altogether if you like. We kept our nonpareil sprinkles white, but rainbow (reminiscent of colorful string lights) would also be fun. This is your Christmas tree—just like with a real one, you decide whether you want to keep it simple or go wild with it this year. Whichever you choose, this is one holiday showstopper that's worth the effort.