In the Torah portion of Behar, G‑d commands Moses regarding the Shemitah (Sabbatical) and Yovel (Jubilee) years. Every seventh year is a Shemitah year, farmers in Israel do not work the land.

For six years they plant and harvest, and during the seventh year, farmers may not work their land or harvest their crops. All of their fields, orchards and vineyards are declared public and the produce can be enjoyed by anyone.

Here are adorable edible fruit trees, connected to the Parsha, for you to create as a special treat or dessert!

Here’s What You’ll Need:

  • 4 cups puffed rice cereal
  • 2 cups marshmallow fluff
  • 1 tablespoon margarine
  • 5 oz. green baking chocolate or chocolate melts
  • Mini colored chocolate chips
  • Twisted pretzels
  • Baking chocolate

Before you start, make sure all of your ingredients are certified kosher.

Directions:

To begin making the treetops, pour margarine, marshmallow fluff and baking chocolate into a medium-size pot. Place the pot on the stove on low-to-medium heat. Keep mixing the mixture for a few minutes, until it is all melted down.

Once the mixture is completely melted, remove from the heat and add in the puffed rice cereal, and mix well.

Place a sheet of baking paper on your workspace, and using gloves, take a handful of the rice cereal mixture, shape it to be circular, but not a perfect, ball, to give a more realistic look for the trees.

Separate some orange, red, yellow and pink chocolate chips. On each treetop, scatter a single color of chocolate chips over the greenery. This will resemble the fruits on the tree.

Allow the treetops to firm up for an hour at room temperature.

Now for the tree trunks.

Using a double boiler, melt the baking chocolate. Melting the chocolate can also be done by placing the chocolate in a ziploc bag, adding another ziploc bg on top and then placing it in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes.

Once the chocolate is melted, place the chocolate in a ziploc bag and cut a small hole in the corner of the bag to pipe the chocolate.

Set another piece of baking paper down. Take two pretzels and pipe some chocolate down the side of one pretzel and lay the second pretzel next to the first, joining the two. As the chocolate hardens, the two pretzels will stick. Create 20-24 pretzel sets. Do not move them until they are completely hardened.

Once the pretzel sets are hardened, join two pretzel sets by placing a generous amount of chocolate on one set and then placing a second set on top. Allow these trunks to dry completely.

Next, pipe blobs of chocolate, around the size of a quarter, onto parchment paper. Wait a minute or two until the sides of the chocolate are beginning to harden, then pick up a pretzel tree trunk and place it into the center of the blob. Hold it in place for a few seconds and let go when it can support itself.

Pipe some more chocolate around the bottom of the tree trunk to give it some more support. Allow to harden for 10-15 minutes.

Once all of the trunks are firm, pick up a treetop and add a small amount of chocolate to the bottom. Then place the treetop onto the trunk pressing down a little.

And there you have it, an adorable fruit tree parsha treat!