Easy Festive Santa Buttercream Board For Christmas

A Christmas Buttercream Board makes a festive and easy holiday dessert! Sweet buttercream frosting is piped into a Santa hat shape and surrounded by delicious dipping options for a very cute crowd-pleasing appetizer or dessert.

Calling all frosting fanatics! A buttercream board is a sweet twist on the viral butter board trend. As sort of a dessert charcuterie board, it will become your new favorite dessert this holiday season!

These days it seems like spinoffs are all the rage, and I’m kind of burned out on many of them. But I will say that my current exception to that feeling is the buttercream board.

This cute dessert board makes an eye-catching, playful (and easy!) party dish that will disappear faster than you made it (which is sayin’ something).

This Christmas version of a buttercream board features a cute Santa hat with an assortment of delicious items to dip and enjoy.

It’s guaranteed to satisfy any sweet tooth and put a smile on everyone’s face! 

And that’s not all! A Christmas buttercream board is versatile enough to make for a family movie night treat or hold its own as a festive centerpiece for your holiday book club meeting or girls’ night.

Serve it with some hot chocolate, eggnog, or mulled cider and call it a success!

Why You’ll Love Making A Buttercream Board

• Failproof – There’s no wrong way to make this cute idea!
• Fun twist on dessert – It’s perfect for both kids and adults.
• Quick and easy to make – It’ll take you only 15 minutes to put together.
• Let creativity soar – It’s a breeze to change the design – make a wreath, a Christmas tree, a snowman, the Grinch – the creative possibilities are endless!
• Serve for any gathering – A buttercream board is as perfect for a family movie night treat as it is for a large holiday party.
• Customize to your heart’s content – Add your favorite items, which can include cookies, biscuits, wafers, marshmallows, pretzels, mini donuts, mini cinnamon rolls, fruit, etc.

Santa Hat Buttercream Board Ingredients

• Powdered sugar
• Butter – at room temperature
• Heavy cream
• Pure vanilla extract
• Mini pretzels
• Biscoff cookies
• Strawberry wafer cookies
• Mini marshmallows
• Standard size marshmallows
• Gel food coloring

Helpful Kitchen Tools

• Hand mixer
• Large Board
• Piping bags and (2) frosting tip 1M

NOTE: For more recipe details, please refer to the handy printable recipe card at the bottom of the post!

How To Make A Santa Buttercream Board

To make a snowman buttercream board, you’ll need a mixer for beating the ingredients, and a few piping bags or zip-top bags for piping the snowman and his accessories. Here’s how to do it:

• Beat together butter, heavy cream, and vanilla –  In a large mixing bowl and using a stand mixer or hand mixer on low speed.
• Add powdered sugar – Add the powdered sugar to the bowl and continue to mix on low speed to blend the powdered sugar into the liquid ingredients. Once blended, make your frosting light and fluffy by increasing to high speed. 
• Color frosting – Once your frosting reaches the texture you want, it’s time to remove some to keep it white and add red food coloring to the rest.
• Fill 2 piping bags with frosting (1 red, 1 white) – And add the 1M tips.
• Pipe the Santa hat on the board – Grab your charcuterie board and pipe circles of red to create the body of the hat. Next, add white for the white band at the bottom of the hat and the puff ball near the top.
• Add dipping treats – Finally, add your various favorite cookies, pretzels, marshmallows, fresh fruit, wafers, and more all around the snowman. 

Santa Hat Buttercream Board Piping Tips

Here’s how to make the rosettes for this frosting board idea:

• Lift the piping bag slightly above the board.
• Squeeze with consistent pressure in a circle.
• Do not drag on the board or the rosettes will be flat.
• Make several in a row, the keep creating rows until the hat forms
• Add a longer line of white rosettes at the bottom for the bottom of the hat and then “star tip” the top.

Star Tip: To make the star, squeeze out a little frosting then stop squeezing and pull off. This should make a textured “star tip” cotton ball for the hat.

Buttercream Notes And Expert Tips

• Frosting – You can make your own from scratch or use save time by using store-bought frosting in the colors you want.
• Seal the Board – If you use a wood charcuterie board, make sure it’s sealed to prevent food coloring from staining it.
• As a general rule, this board will serve 8-10 people.
• Don’t worry about your piping skills – You don’t need special skills to make this buttercream board! If you mess up, you can always use a butter knife or spatula to spread the frosting into the shape you want. It’ll still taste delicious! 

Pro Tip – Pay attention to how much food coloring you add to the frosting because too much can add an unpleasant bitter flavor.

Safety Tip – Avoid using boards that you also use to prepare raw meat because they can store bacteria that you don’t want getting into your frosting. If you need to, you can line your board with parchment paper and add your buttercream board on top of that (bonus: easy cleanup!)

Variations To Try

Make any Christmas-related shape- Instead of a Santa hat, you could make a Christmas tree with green frosting, a snowman with white frosting, a snowflake with white or blue frosting, a gingerbread man with brown frosting, or any other holiday shape you want!

Add flavoring – If you want to change things up, you could add a teaspoon of mint extract, orange extract, or your favorite flavor to the frosting!

Cookies and dippers – I recommend using a variety of crackers, cookies, and other dippers. Some ideas include mini pretzels, chocolate or yogurt-covered pretzels, Teddy Grahams, graham crackers, butter cookies, Ritz crackers, pound cake pieces, shortbread cookies, Oreos, fresh fruit (berries, pineapple, etc), or any of your other favorites!

Add some sparkle – Dust your frosting with festive sprinkles or edible glitter! It’ll look amazing.

Buttercream Frosting Board Storage

I highly recommend enjoying this buttercream board as soon as it’s assembled.

Keep frosting refrigerated until you create the board.

If you have leftover frosting that you want to save, scoop it off the board and put it into an airtight container. Store it in the fridge for up to 7 days. Use it to make another little buttercream board (or simply enjoy it with fruit or dippers yourself)! 

Also, put all the dippers and cookies in separate plastic baggies or airtight containers and store at room temperature.

Can I Make This Ahead Of Time?

I highly recommend making it right before you want to serve it. The good news is that it doesn’t take long to assemble.

More Fun Holiday Recipes

• Pistachio Grinch Cupcakes
• Cute Hot Chocolate Cookie Cups
• Cheesy Christmas Tree Pull Apart Bread
• Candy Cane Cherry Danish With Cream Cheese
• Strawberry Santas (Healthy Cheesecake Dessert)
• Grinch Cake Pops

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