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Delicious Holiday Appetizer featuring lightly toasted baguette topped with garlic cream cheese spread, tomato, and fresh basil.
This is the perfect bite this holiday season! For a fun and festive touch, use alphabet cookie cutters to shape the tomatoes into Santa’s favorite catchphrase – Ho Ho Ho!
Recipe Tip
Serve these crowd-pleasers at your next holiday party, or anytime you need a fun, festive snack.
The best part is you can customize the bruschetta in so many ways, whether you prefer sweet or savory options.
Key Ingredients
Please be sure to scroll down to the recipe card for the complete details!
- Baguette: Use ciabatta, a French baguette, or similar.
- Grape tomatoes: Any tomatoes will do, as long as they are large enough for the letter cutouts.
- Cream cheese: I like to use a garlic-flavored cream cheese, but any spreadable cheese is fine.
Possible Variations
- Cream cheese: Sundried tomato pesto, shredded tomato, Brie, peanut butter, Nutella, pesto, cottage cheese, hummus, goat cheese, or whipped feta.
- Baguette: Crackers, toast, sourdough, pita chips, puff pastry, or endive leaves.
- Tomato: Make the letter cutouts using fresh mozzarella, cheddar slices, ham, chorizo, peppers, cucumber, radishes, apples, or strawberries.
- Fresh basil: Swap for mint, thyme, or chives.
- Toppings: Honey or balsamic glaze.
How to Make this Holiday Appetizer
- Prepare the ingredients: Slice and toast the baguette. Halve and deseed the tomatoes.
- Cut out the letters: Use the cookie cutters to cut out the grape tomato Ho Ho Ho’s.
- Assemble the bruschetta: Spread cream cheese onto the toast. Add the tomato Ho Ho Ho’s, fresh basil, and season well.
Serving Suggestion
For a different version, try basil pesto with mozzarella Ho Ho Ho’s.
How to Store Leftovers
This bruschetta is best enjoyed the same day. Alternatively, keep the toast, cream cheese, and tomato slices in the fridge in separate airtight containers. Enjoy within 1-2 days.
Holiday Appetizer FAQs
Absolutely. Halve and deseed the grape tomatoes, and then cut out the letters by hand using a small pairing knife.
You can prepare the tomato cutouts, and slice the bread, but wait to toast them and assemble them until 30 minutes before your guests arrive (they are best served at room temperature).
Kids will love a peanut butter or Nutella-topped baguette with strawberry cutouts.
They make a great addition to any festive cheese plate or charcuterie platter. Add your favorite cheeses, walnuts, nuts, olives, bacon-wrapped dates, and other savory snacks. Classics such as veggies, French onion dip, sausage rolls, and my snowman cheese ball are also great options.
More Festive Recipes
Christmas
Burrata Snowman
Christmas
Santa’s Hat Platter
Christmas
Snowman Stick Platter
Christmas
Christmas Tree Appetizers
If you make this recipe or any other recipe on Foodbites, then I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment and rating below.
Holiday Appetizer
Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 slices baguette, toasted
- 10 grape tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese, garlic
- fresh basil
- sea salt, to taste
- pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Slice five pieces of bread and stick them in a toaster.
- Halve the grape tomatoes lengthwise and spoon out the pit.
- Place the 'H' and 'O' cookie cutters on the halved tomato (cut-side facing up).
- Use your fingers to pierce the tomato skin against the cookie cutter (you may need to trim the outline with a knife).
- Press the tomato letter out of the cutter.
- Cut any excess pulp off the back of the letters so they can lay flat.
- Continue until you have ten letters of each.
- Spread the cream cheese onto the toasted baguette slices.
- Top with two tomato HO HO’s on each slice and a few fresh basil leaves.
- Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper (balsamic vinegar would be delicious too).
- Serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
