10 Christmas Desserts

These are the classics, the desserts that turn up on Christmas tables in one country or another every single year.

Some take ten minutes and some take a week of soaking or aging, so the notes below say which is which before you start.

Each one below has a pin so you can see what you’re aiming for, and a link to a recipe that has actually been made.

Ten of them.

1. Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread dough is soft and sticky at first, so it needs at least 30 minutes in the fridge before it’ll roll without tearing.

Roll it between two sheets of parchment instead of on a floured counter, so you don’t work extra flour in and toughen the cookies.

An eighth of an inch thick gives a cookie that holds its shape and stays a little soft in the middle.

A gingerbread man cutter dipped in flour between cuts gives clean edges.

Bake until the edges are just firm, about 8 to 10 minutes, because they harden as they cool.

Decorate only once they’re completely cold, or the icing slides off.

The pin is A Palate For Pie’s gingerbread men, an adapted Taste of Home recipe with butter, brown sugar, a third of a cup of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, rolled an eighth of an inch thick and baked at 350°F for 8 to 10 minutes.

2. Bûche de Noël (Yule Log)

A yule log is a thin chocolate sponge rolled around a cream filling and frosted to look like bark.

Roll the sponge up in a towel while it’s still warm and let it cool rolled, because a cold sponge cracks when you try to roll it.

Unroll it gently, spread the filling, and roll it back up along the same curve.

Run a fork down the chocolate frosting for the bark texture, and cut a short slice off one end to stick on the side as a branch.

Meringue mushrooms and sugared cranberries are optional, and both can be made days ahead; a 10×15 jelly roll pan is the right size for the sponge.

The whole cake can be made a day ahead and kept in the fridge, which also makes it easier to slice.

The pin is Sally’s Baking Addiction’s bûche de Noël, which uses a cake flour and cocoa sponge made with six separated eggs, a whipped cream filling and chocolate ganache frosting, and includes meringue mushrooms and sugared cranberries, for 10 to 12 slices.

3. Panettone

Panettone is a tall, rich yeast bread, and the homemade version takes a day because the dough rises slowly.

Start with a preferment the night before, which is what gives it the flavor and soft, stringy crumb.

The dough is very soft and enriched with butter and eggs, so a stand mixer does the kneading far better than hands.

Bake it in a paper panettone mold, which holds it up as it rises and stays on for serving or gifting.

Tent it with foil partway through if the top browns before the middle is baked.

Once it’s out, let it cool completely before slicing, or the crumb collapses.

The pin is King Arthur’s cherry almond panettone, which starts with an overnight preferment, adds butter, eggs, vanilla and almond extract and a little potato flour, and fills the dough with dried cherries, toasted almonds and chocolate, topped with pearl sugar.

4. Peppermint Bark

Peppermint bark is two layers of chocolate with crushed candy canes on top, and it’s the easiest dessert on this list.

Use chopped bars, not chips, since chips don’t melt smooth.

Let the dark chocolate layer set just until firm but still slightly tacky before adding the white layer, so the two stick together and don’t split when you break it.

A little oil in each layer keeps the chocolate from cracking into shards, and peppermint extract goes in sparingly.

Line an 8-inch pan with parchment so you can lift it out, then break it into pieces once it’s fully set; candy canes crush fastest in a zip bag with a rolling pin.

It keeps for weeks in a tin and makes a good gift in a cellophane bag.

The pin is a home cook’s bark with no recipe attached, so the method is Sally’s Baking Addiction’s peppermint bark, which layers 6 ounces of semi-sweet and 12 ounces of white chocolate with half a teaspoon of peppermint extract and two or three crushed candy canes in a lined 8 or 9-inch pan.

5. Christmas Pudding

Christmas pudding is a dense, dark, steamed fruit pudding, and it’s traditionally made weeks ahead so the flavor deepens.

Soak the dried fruit overnight in brandy or orange juice before mixing, which plumps it and keeps the pudding moist.

Steam it in a greased pudding basin, covered with pleated parchment and foil tied tight so water can’t get in.

Keep the water in the pot halfway up the basin and top it up with boiling water as it steams, because a pot that boils dry scorches the pudding and the pan.

Store it wrapped in a cool place, then steam it again for an hour or two on Christmas Day to reheat.

Serve it with custard, cream or brandy butter, and if you flame it, warm the brandy first and keep everything clear of the flame.

The pin is Recipes Made Easy’s traditional Christmas pudding, which uses dates, figs, raisins, sultanas, currants, cherries, peel and a cooking apple with muscovado sugar, treacle, suet, breadcrumbs, almonds and warm spices, and makes one large and one small pudding.

6. Eggnog Cheesecake

Gingersnaps make a better crust than graham crackers here, because the ginger matches the eggnog spices.

Everything for the filling has to be at room temperature, since cold cream cheese leaves lumps you can’t beat out without adding air.

Wrap the springform pan in two layers of foil and bake it in a water bath, which keeps the edges from overbaking.

Turn the oven off while the center still jiggles and leave it inside for an hour, which is what stops it cracking.

It needs at least six hours in the fridge, so make it the day before.

Whipped cream and sugared cranberries go on just before serving, and the cheesecake stays refrigerated.

The pin is A Classic Twist’s eggnog cheesecake with gingersnap crust, which uses three blocks of cream cheese, a quarter cup of eggnog, two tablespoons of Irish cream and three eggs over a cinnamon gingersnap crust, baked in a water bath and chilled six hours.

7. Stollen

Stollen is a German Christmas bread full of dried fruit, with a log of marzipan running through the middle.

Soak the dried fruit in orange juice before it goes in, so it doesn’t pull moisture out of the dough.

Knead the fruit in gently at the end, because added too early it tears the dough and turns it gray.

Roll the marzipan into a log, lay it down the center, and fold the dough over it so it bakes into a seam.

Brush it with melted butter straight out of the oven, then dust heavily with icing sugar, which seals it and keeps it moist.

Wrapped well, it keeps a week or more and gets better after a few days.

The pin is olive magazine’s classic stollen, which uses an enriched milk and butter dough with mixed spice and almond extract, dried cranberries, mixed fruit, almonds and orange, and 250g of marzipan, finished with melted butter and icing sugar.

8. Sugar Cookies

Cut-out sugar cookies need a dough that doesn’t spread, and less leavening and extra egg yolk is how this one manages it.

Roll it about a quarter inch thick for cookies that hold their shape and stay soft.

If the dough gets warm and soft, slide the cut shapes into the freezer for ten minutes before baking.

Pull them when the edges are set and still pale, since browned sugar cookies are crunchy.

The icing in many recipes uses raw egg whites, so use pasteurized egg whites or meringue powder if anyone eating them is pregnant, very young, elderly or has a weak immune system.

Let the icing dry completely, a few hours or overnight, before stacking.

The pin is Dessert for Two’s Christmas sugar cookie cut-outs, which need no chilling, use butter, sugar, two egg yolks and vanilla, and are iced with a powdered sugar and egg white glaze and green tree piping for 16 cookies.

9. Trifle

A Christmas trifle is sponge soaked in sherry, then fruit, then custard, then cream, built in a glass bowl so the layers show.

Madeira or pound cake holds up better than a light sponge, which turns to mush under the custard.

Let the fruit jelly layer set fully in the fridge before the custard goes on, or the layers bleed into each other.

The custard has to be cold too, because warm custard melts the cream on top.

A straight-sided glass trifle bowl shows each layer cleanly.

Build it the day before, keep it in the fridge, and add the cream and crushed amaretti just before serving.

The pin is BBC Good Food’s classic sherry trifle, which uses frozen summer fruit set into a jelly with leaf gelatine, madeira cake soaked in sherry or cassis, a custard made with custard powder and milk, and vanilla whipped cream with crushed amaretti on top.

10. Fruitcake

Fruitcake has a bad name because of the dry store-bought kind, and a homemade one is moist and full of real dried fruit.

Use dried fruit you’d eat on its own, like raisins, apricots, peaches and cherries, instead of the neon candied mix.

Soak the fruit in rum or orange juice overnight before mixing, which is what keeps the cake moist.

Bake it low and slow, and tent with foil if the top darkens before a skewer comes out clean.

For aging, wrap the cooled loaves in cheesecloth soaked in sherry or orange liqueur, then plastic wrap, and leave them for at least a week.

Bake it in early December so it’s ready by Christmas, and slice it thin.

The pin is A Beautiful Plate’s world’s best fruit cake, which soaks dark and golden raisins, mixed dried peaches and apricots and other dried fruit in rum, adds citrus zest and candied ginger, and makes two 8 by 4-inch loaves to age in sherry-soaked cheesecloth.

For a cookie tray to set next to these, the unique and easy Christmas cookies post has ten that aren’t the usual five.

And for the savory side of the party, the Christmas finger foods post covers what goes out before dessert.