Christmas Dessert | Nigella's Recipes

Salted Caramel Brandy Butter

To make this brandy butter you will need to have prepared my Salted Caramel Sauce.

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Chestnut Chocolate Pots — Photo by Lis Parsons

I'm almost embarrassed by how easy these are. It's true that you do need a processor, though you could just chop well and whisk using a lot of elbow grease. As an experiment, I also tried the chestnut…

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Calvados Syllabub

Syllabub is one of those ethereal, dreamy confections which seem at odds with the description 'pudding'. But this scented, whipped cream, piled up to swell cloudily out of its container, is a perfect…

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Mini Pavlovas

These may be mini pavlovas, but there's a big old batch of them, as this recipe comes from a time when my children were little and I would make these for the school summer bake sale. Obviously, you ca…

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Cappuccino Pavlova

I am inordinately proud of this, and am not ashamed to say so. I have long been a pava-holic but this is my first venture into a fruit-free (though far from fruitless) version. The instant espresso po…

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Chocolate Chestnut Refrigerator Cake

This is another of my maternal grandmother's recipes. I've changed it a bit, not least substituting dark rum for her juice and zest of an orange and a slug or two of Grand Marnier. It's not that I did…

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Chocolate Cloud Cake

On days when I want the warmth of the hearth rather than the hurly burly of the city streets I stay in and read cookery books, and this recipe comes from just the sort of book that gives most succour,…

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Chocolate Fruit Cake

This is the perfect cut-and-come again cake for any time of the year. It lasts for a fortnight, but has the squidgy fabulousness of something so much less serviceable-sounding. I know there are a lot…

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Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake

I love a fallen chocolate cake, and have found most everyone else does too. The cakes are so called because they are compact and flourless and, when cooling out of the oven, their rich centres drop an…

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Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake

This is the fruity blonde sister to that brunette temptress, my chocolate fruit cake from Nigella Christmas. It delivers, as promised, a cake of apricot-pear-and-ginger goldenness and goodness, so squ…

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Italian Christmas Pudding Cake

This recipe is my own but at the same time a conflation of a couple of Italian Christmas must-haves: the glorious, fruit-studded panettone and crema di mascarpone, which is best described as tiramisu…

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Pecan-Plus Pie

This is somewhat of an Anglo-American enterprise. I have taken a pecan pie, and added other nuts, simply because for me, the English festive season means bowls of mixed nuts and the memory of my grand…

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Chocolate Salame

I’ve encountered quite a few versions of chocolate salame in Italy — coming to the conclusion that it’s really an Italian version of our chocolate refrigerator cake — and although I am not normally a…

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Girdlebuster Pie

I confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same. I came across this in a recipe by Elinor Klivans, whom I often turn to for chocolatey solace, in her The Essential Chocolate…

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I made this and I busted my girdle.

Clementine Cake

This, an adaption of Claudia Roden's magnificent orange and almond cake, is a wonderfully damp, dense and aromatic flourless cake: it tastes like one of those sponges you drench, while cooling, with s…

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Irish Cream Tiramisu

I've long been tinkering about with a bottle of Bailey's, seeing how it could best be called upon in the kitchen, and I think, with this, I've found it. An Italian friend of mine, who makes a killer t…

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Once you try this recipe you’ll never make tiramisu any other way. It is the best ever! People talk about it for years and years. Thank you.

Chocolate Pudding for Christmas Pudding Haters

Christmas pudding isn’t for everyone and, even though I have faith in my pudding’s ability to convert, there’s no point nagging or, indeed, fighting against real, die-hard antipathies. Besides, I have…

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Easy-Action Christmas Cake

I just throw everything into a pan, let the heat from the stove send buttery rum and citrus juices permeating into the currants, sultanas and raisins, add flour and eggs, a can of chestnut purée to gi…

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Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake

This is a sleight of hand, or a trick of equipment rather than an act of brilliance. True, the cake does look incredibly complicated and seasonally impressive as it comes to the table, but that is all…

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Star-Topped Mince Pies

This is the way I make my mince pies, and there is no changing me or them: they are small, to be popped straight into the mouth in one go; the pastry is plain, the better to contrast with the rich, fr…

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Yule Log

I know the recipe looks finicky, and I can’t promise it’s a doddle, but it works easily and you will soon find you are rolling chocolate logs without a care. In fact, if you have a lot of people comin…

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Ice Cream With Cranberry Syrup

Cool, satiny ice cream with a cranberry syrup so jewel-bright and shiny it could be made of molten lip gloss. My great aunt used to make an ice cream studded with raisins and candied peel that she cal…

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No-Churn Chestnut Ice Cream

In my view, there is no bad way to eat chestnuts, ever: my greatest — and exquisitely extravagant treat — is a marron glacé. Nothing, though, gives me quite the same frisson of intense, sugary delight…

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No-Churn Pomegranate Ice Cream

It's not hard to think of a pudding that can be made in advance. But mostly the advantage is simply that all the effort is upfront and early. The thing about this recipe is that you do it in advance —…

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I'm not a natural in the kitchen and this was easy to make, tasted indulgent and lovely, and I can't believe I made ice-cream. Thank you Nigella.

Pomegranate Jewel Cake

Many cultures use food that resembles money — lentils for coins, saffron for gold — in celebratory meals, to invoke a wish for prosperity and good fortune ahead, and this fragrant, light, flourless al…

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Christmas Chocolate Biscuits — Photo by Lis Parsons

Christmas Chocolate Cookies

I love these dark, fat patties of chocolate shortbread exuberantly topped with festive sprinkles. There’s something so cheering about the sight of them, but they have more in their favour than looks:…

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Christmas Morning Muffins

I have never quite understood how people can go in for vast, rich breakfasts on Christmas morning. I am hardly a modest eater by anyone's standards, but even I can't quite accommodate a platterful of…

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Christmas Rocky Road

It’s not that I felt my usual Rocky Road Crunch Bars needed any improvement (though fiddling with recipes is one of life’s pleasures) but I thought they would benefit from some seasonal adjustment. So…

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Edible Christmas Tree Decorations

I couldn’t have Christmas without these, or at least, not happily. Rituals are essential to give us meaning, a sense of ceremony, and making these peppery, gingerbready edible decorations is how I hav…

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Glitzy Chocolate Puddings

If you've got an electric whisk — either a hand one or a freestanding mixer — this is very low effort indeed, but it is a real showstopper. There's something quite extraordinary about the greedy silen…

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Eton Mess

This recipe uses bottled fresh pomegranate juice to encourage the strawberries to ooze out their fragrant summery juices. If you're making this with out-of-season strawberries, then you stand a chance…

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Anglo-Italian Trifle

I don't think I could write a book that didn't include a recipe for trifle somewhere — and this, I tell you, is the trifle to end all trifles. The shiny black of the berries, the soft whiteness of the…

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Holiday Hot Cake With Eggnog Cream

A warming, welcoming pud full of seasonal spice that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes. Truly a pudding to give thanks for. As for the eggnog cream, by all means add a grating of nutmeg if…

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Marshmallow Crispy Squares

You'd think this was designed to keep the children happy, and while that's OK with me, it is the adults who seem to find this particuarly irresistible. If I can find a tub of edible disco glitter in o…

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Chestnut Cheesecake

There is no doubt about it, anything with chestnuts in it, even if they come vacuum-packed or canned and are perennially available, is so right for this time of year. The chestnuts are present, in the…

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Christmas Creme Brulee

I don’t need to tell you how beautiful this is: you can see. It’s extravagant, certainly, but it’s meant to be. And it feels like a treat, breaking through that gilt-tortoiseshell crust to the voluptu…

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Christmas Cupcakes

These beauties also make a very good alternative to mince pies. I buy the icing ready made and dyed (which is why it isn’t a very convincing colour for holly, let’s be frank) and use cranberries as th…

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Cider and 5-Spice Bundt Cake

Most of the time I refer to this as my Cider and 5-Spice Gingerbread, but I changed the name out of concern for those who expect a little more gingeriness from their gingerbead (although anyone is fre…

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No-Churn Brandied Pumpkin Ice Cream

The genesis of this particular recipe is the Pumpkin Bundt Cake or, rather, the fact that having made it, I had a small amount of pumpkin purée left over. I paired it with half a tin of condensed milk…

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Date and Marmalade Christmas Cake

This cake tastes like Christmas pudding — a very, very good Christmas pudding — the sort the Quakers (as I’m fond of quoting) once magnificently condemned as “the invention of the scarlet whore of Bab…

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Devil's Food Cake

Forget the name, this cake is heavenly. The crumb is tender, the filling and frosting luscious. When I made it one Friday, I expected my children, resident food critics much in the mould of the Grim e…

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Gleaming Maple Cheesecake

This is an exquisite cheesecake, tangy and delicate, with the pronounced smokiness and subdued sweetness of the maple syrup. It has a fabulously light, smooth and voluptuous texture, and two things he…

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Forgotten Pudding

There is a wonderful poetry to the name of this pudding which, thankfully, once eaten could never be forgotten. It's an old, old recipe rediscovered — I believe — by the late, great Richard Sax. Think…

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Image of Nigella's Salted Caramel Bourbon Ice Cream — Photo by Jonathan Lovekin

No-Churn Salted Caramel Bourbon Ice Cream

If I don’t have a tub of this in my deep-freeze, I just don’t feel right about things. I have made many no-churn ice creams in my time, but this is the one I make (and eat) the most. And it’s so very,…

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Tried this recipe and wow it is amazing! So easy to make but the taste is fantastic! I can definitely see myself making this a lot in the future!

Chocolate Olive Oil Mousse

I first came across a version of this voluptuously soft, rich chocolate mousse at Morito, one of my favourite places to eat in London. Then — as these things tend to happen — I started finding it ever…

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Ultimate Christmas Pudding

I don’t deny it: there is something unattractively boastful about calling one’s own recipe “ultimate”. But having soaked my dried fruit for this pudding in Pedro Ximénez — the sweet, dark, sticky sher…

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Christmas Puddini Bonbons

These are delectable little bonbons made by mixing up cooked and cooled Christmas pudding (see Additional Information below), liquor, syrup and melted chocolate, rolling them into small balls, then dr…

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Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

I am willing to believe that a confectioner wouldn't call this proper fudge, but it tastes divine, and you won't need a sugar thermometer or have to test for frightening soft or hard ball stages. I li…

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Rocky Road Crunch Bars

If ever there were questions raised about the need for Rich Tea biscuits, then Rocky Road would be all the answer required. A doddle to make, and easily transportable, a batch of these has saved me of…

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Honey Pie

This is adapted from the Salty Honey Pie from the Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. I haven’t fiddled much with the ur-version — why mess with perfection? — but mine does have an easier-to-make, no…

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My Brandy Alexander Pie

This dessert has mixed parentage: I put a recipe for a Brandy Alexander cocktail into the Cookbook Corner section of the old website and almost immediately was tweeted about the wonderful creation tha…

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Chocolate Gingerbread

I’d never come across a chocolate gingerbread, and after making this one for the first time, I wondered why not. There’s something about the glottally thickening wodge of chocolate chip and cocoa that…

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Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

This is, for me, the quintessential chocolate cake: melting, luscious and mood-enhancingly good. A food technologist would explain this in terms of "mouthfeel" but I don't know quite how that makes me…

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I've made this cake many times and never a crumb has been left ! Everyone I made it for has said how lovely it is and is become my go to cake for all occasions ! Thank you Nigella for all your lovely recipes x

Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

You just cannot beat a pav in my book, and I glory in particular this dark beauty. The crisp and chewy chocolate meringue base, rich in cocoa and beaded nuggets of chopped plain chocolate, provides a…

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Luscious Vegan Gingerbread

I am preposterously proud of this squidgy gingerbread, and I don't mind who knows it. It's everything you want out of a gingerbread — sticky, spicy, deeply aromatic — and you would never miss the butt…

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Rhubarb and Custard Trifle

I have published many recipes for trifle and made even more, and this is the one I return to most, even though it’s the first time I’ve actually written it down. This simple, joyous pile-up of sponge,…

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Eggnog Cream

The traditional sauce for Christmas pudding is a "hard sauce", that's to say brandy butter but I can't help feeling that this corner-cutting Eggnogg Cream, devised for my Express festivities last year…

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Forgotten Cookies

These little cookies — described by one friend as tasting like a cookie within a cookie — are really a mixture between a meringue and a cookie. Hence they've become known at home, where they're immens…

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Linzer Cookies

In its wildest dreams, a jammy dodger could never aspire to the melting tenderness and celestial lightness of the Linzer cookie. The idea is the same: two biscuits, sandwiched together with jam, a hol…

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Panettone French Toast

While I was tempted to call this Italian Toast, rather than the almost tactless Panettone French Toast, I felt the latter title had the benefit of conveying to you exactly what this is. You can certai…

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Pumpkin Bundt Cake

It’s no secret that I love a bundt cake: it just looks instantly celebratory. Plus, once you have the tin (and if you don't, you can bake this cake in a 20cm/8 inch square tin) you do want to get good…

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Sticky Toffee Pudding

There is very little that can compare with the glory of a sticky toffee pudding. My STP is altogether deeper and darker than the original version: it is still sweet, but the muscovado sugar and black…

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Sticky. Toffee. Pudding. Three of the greatest words in the English language. This is rich, indulgent and so comforting. The recipe makes a large amount of sauce but the leftovers were fantastic on my morning porridge!

Image of Nigella's Summer Pudding — Photo by Jonathan Lovekin