An adorable and super simple way to revisit Christmas sand roses.
A few days ago, I shared with you the tradition of gift drawing in my family. Today, I'm going to tell you about another tradition at our place: sand roses. I believe that not a single Christmas since I was born has gone without these little delicacies. It must be said that it's super simple, quick and completely addictive. But this year I decided to twist this emblematic recipe a bit by giving it a much more "Christmas" shape. With these tree sand roses, we can say that I'm starting to get in the mood, right?
What is the origin of the name sand roses?
Sand roses are small delicacies made of corn flakes and fat coated in chocolate. As it dries, the chocolate hardens and the sand rose becomes crispy. It owes its name to the resemblance of the rocks found in the desert (the resemblance to a real sand rose is striking).
What chocolate for sand roses?
Sand roses are traditionally made with dark chocolate. But you can also use milk chocolate if you like. In that case, I advise you not to add icing sugar.
The principle of the sand rose tree
If you're used to making sand roses, this won't be unfamiliar to you. In fact, all you need to do is make sand rose wafers of different sizes and stack them on top of each other using a small amount of melted chocolate.
I think the hardest part will be finding enough trays and space in your fridge to store your little wafers because the assembly is actually child's play.
The recipe for sand roses
And for those not familiar with making sand roses, it's super simple: melt the chocolate, vegetaline and half the icing sugar in a large pot or Dutch oven (it will be easier to distribute the chocolate well). Then just pour in the corn flakes and coat them well with chocolate.
Making the wafers
When all the petals are well coated with chocolate, take a small amount and spread it into a wafer on parchment paper. The idea is to make circles slightly larger at each stage to stack them into a tree shape). For reference, I think my bottom wafer was about 20 cm in diameter and 2 cm thick. The top one was probably about 3 cm in diameter. Once our little wafers are made, we leave them in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Sand roses that don't melt
To keep the sand roses from melting, I add vegetaline to the recipe. It's a fat that is slightly harder than butter at room temperature and will keep your sand roses nice and solid.
Assembling the sand rose tree
Then just melt 100 g of chocolate to hold the wafers together (a small dab of chocolate between each layer is enough). Once your tree is assembled, a light dusting of icing sugar using a sieve and that's it! Your Christmas treats are ready!
I usually place my little trees as decoration on the Christmas table. It's a nice way to dress up a table runner. It's actually quite rare for them not to be devoured before dessert!
Sand rose tree
