'Tis the season to indulge. If you’re looking to whip up some edible Christmas cheer, you’re in the right place. From gingerbread cookies to spiced cakes and a seriously impressive profiterole tower, our collection of festive baking recipes will keep you busy (and well-fed) over the holidays.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover every sweet festive baking recipe you’ll need this Christmas, from fabulous foodie gifts to show-stopping cakes everyone will love.
These adorable gingerbread biscuits take less than half an hour to make, which leaves plenty of time for the fun part: decorating. And here's a nifty trick – the gingerbread men become reindeers when the shape is turned upside-down and antlers are iced on. If you don’t have a gingerbread man cookie cutter, you could cut out stars, hearts, Christmas trees (or whatever you fancy) by hand.
These little pineapple and raisin bundt cakes are fun to make and utterly adorable to look at (and eat). This recipe uses tinned pineapple in the batter and juice from the can to make a delicious pineapple drizzle. Get the whole family involved in decorating these beauties and don’t hold back on the gold sprinkles (‘tis the season, after all).
Nothing gets you in the Christmas spirit like a spiced cake. This one has a light, moist sponge infused with the sultry, comforting flavours of coffee and nutmeg. It’s finished with a generous helping of light-as-air, slightly sweetened whipped cream.
Roulades look spectacular and are not nearly as difficult to make as you might think, so why not have a go at this decidedly grown-up chocolate and hazelnut version from British baking queen Mary Berry? The sponge is filled with a decadently flavoured cream and topped with crunchy hazelnut praline, for a sweet treat that will get everyone talking.
This elegant, amber-hued cake is full of Christmas cheer. Use your favourite spiced rum (or a rum flavouring) as this will be one of the key flavours in the cake, along with juicy raisins, spicy candied ginger, sweet dried apricots (or pineapple), cashews and homemade caramel. For a final festive flourish, drizzle with icing sugar and scatter with chopped nuts.
Little clementine puddings are a fun (and slightly lighter) alternative to traditional Christmas pudding, while a tart cranberry sauce is the perfect accompaniment. We recommend adding a dollop of whipped double cream, too – it is Christmas, after all.
Get the recipe for clementine sponges with cranberry sauce here
Best eaten fresh from the oven, madeleines are petite French cakes flavoured with citrus or spices. These ones contain ground almonds which makes them especially moist, while cardamom and orange zest add a lovely festive zing. They’re fairly easy and speedy to make, although you will need a shell-shaped madeleine tin in order to achieve the characteristic shape.
Get the recipe for orange, almond and cardamom madeleines here
A festive twist on the classic pineapple upside-down cake, this version uses citrusy clementines, which turn slightly sour when cooked this way. The flavour works really well with the bittersweet caramel and heady cardamom, though you could swap them for blood oranges (which have a striking crimson centre) or just use regular oranges.
Get the recipe for clementine and cardamom upside-down cake here
Stollen is a German sweet bread spiked with nuts, spices and candied fruit; traditionally is has a marzipan centre and is finished with a dusting of icing sugar. This recipe takes those key elements and incorporates them into a cake – the batter is resplendent with cranberries, amaretto, orange zest, nutmeg and cardamom, and the marzipan core is irresistible.
A glistening tower of profiteroles finished with rivers of chocolate sauce is just what you (and your lucky guests) need this Christmas. Top tip: if you swap butter for oil when making the choux pastry, the result will be crispier and crunchier. Profiteroles are best eaten fresh, but you can keep the choux pastry in the fridge for a day or so before baking, if you want to get ahead.
A luxurious upgrade on the classic British bread and butter pudding, this seasonally inspired dessert is a great way to use up leftover panettone. It’s served with a simple yet wonderfully aromatic mandarin sauce, which works really well with the rich and creamy pudding.
No detail is spared in the making of this caramelised clementine tart. Citrus zest is incorporated into the homemade pastry as well as the creamy tart filling. After being baked, it's left to cool in the oven to prevent cracks forming, then sprinkled with caster sugar ready to be either scorched with a blow torch or simply dusted with icing sugar.
This is truly a decadent celebration cake, so what better occasion to make it than Christmas. The flavoured sponge is iced with buttercream (laced with Irish cream, like Baileys), then topped with a cascade of salted caramel sauce. For an extra dose of decadence, decorate it with homemade salted caramel popcorn (or your favourite shop-bought variety) and macarons.
For the perfect sweetness, you'll either need really ripe, juicy fresh pineapple or tinned pineapple to make this upside-down cake. Either way, the fruit will soften and sweeten in the oven, infusing the batter around it as it cooks, while the addition of fresh ginger adds a warming, festive element. Serve with scoops of vanilla ice cream for a dessert to remember.
Get the recipe for pineapple and ginger upside-down cake here
These Florentines are laced with crystallised ginger, almonds and orange zest. These ones are also dipped on one side in a mixture of white and milk chocolate, for a marbled effect. They're delicious with a cup of coffee and would also make a brilliant edible gift.
It's well worth baking your own mince pies, as crumbly homemade pastry makes all the difference here. You buy jars of mincemeat, but some shop-bought varieties are overly sweet – have a taste, then add orange zest and a sprinkling of mixed spice as needed.
This rich fruit cake will keep for up to three months in an airtight container, but we think it will be devoured well before then. The cake batter is packed with raisins, apricots, dates, glacé cherries, orange zest, almonds, mixed spice and brandy, and you can continue to ‘feed’ it with more brandy over the weeks to help the flavour develop. It’s topped with marzipan and royal icing, which is scorched with a blow torch to give it a golden finish.
Christmas isn’t complete without trifle, the classic British dessert that layers fruit, sponge fingers, custard and whipped cream. Though it looks impressive, it’s really just an assembly job – unless you fancy making your own amaretti biscuits, custard and sponge fingers! Save yourself the trouble and arrange the ingredients in an elegant serving dish, then finish with the infused whipped cream.
As well as gifting the pears a beautiful red colour, soaking the fruit in mulled wine gives this cake another layer of richness and spice. The batter also incorporates ground ginger, preserved ginger and ground almonds and the result is a moist, sticky, slightly spicy ginger cake.
Get the recipe for mulled wine and pear sticky ginger cake here
Panettone, the gorgeous Italian sweet bread eaten at Christmas, is made with a yeasted dough enriched with butter, egg, sugar, fruit and spices. This recipe makes a dozen miniature ones which can be proved overnight, baked in the morning and popped into stockings on Christmas Day.
Don’t be fooled by the diminutive size of these gingerbread cake bites – they pack a real flavour punch. Black treacle, brown sugar, potent stem ginger and ground ginger give them depth and intensity, while oatmeal and wholemeal flour add an appealing, hearty texture.
Why not try something different this year and swap traditional mince pies for a mince pie streusel tart? The crunchy topping – made with oats and mandarin zest – offers a refreshing change from the traditional, slightly heavier pastry lid. Served in elegant slices with a drizzle of cream, this recipe makes a lovely festive dessert.
Light, cream-filled choux pastry éclairs are welcome any time of year and these festive-themed ones are the perfect excuse to whip them up around Christmas. To do so, pipe the dough into rings to make an edible wreath. Once baked, glaze the éclairs with chocolate ganache and decorate with edible stars or dust with icing sugar.
Though you can buy great Christmas puddings in the shops, there’s something about preparing your own that builds anticipation for the big day. The pudding takes a good few hours to steam and (like Christmas cake) has to be ‘fed’ with brandy every week or so to keep it moist, but the end result is well worth the effort.
What’s a Christmas dessert table without a meringue? This show-stopper dessert stacks two homemade meringues with vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, whipped cream and fresh raspberries (you can also use thawed frozen fruit). It's the perfect sweet centrepiece, and certainly won’t hang around for long.
Whether you’ve got leftover Christmas pudding to use up or just want to put a seasonal spin on an apple crumble, this festive dessert is sure to satisfy (you can also add in other fruit, such as prunes or tinned peaches). Serve with lashings of vanilla custard for a truly comforting festive pudding.
Although it’s not iced, this fruit and nut cake looks (and tastes) just as festive as a traditional Christmas cake. It’s generously decorated with figs, dates, prunes, pecans and star anise, all of which have been glazed with apricot jam to give them a glossy sheen. The wonderfully dense cake is rich, so you’ll only need a tiny sliver.
Chocolate-lovers will adore this rich yule log which is covered in dark chocolate mousse. Give it extra festive appeal, especially for kids, by dusting with edible glitter, chocolate stars or curls.
A spin on the traditional chocolate yule log, this gingerbread-inspired number boasts a gorgeous golden sponge courtesy of the black treacle, honey, brown sugar, ground ginger and cinnamon in the cake mixture. The light and airy, snowy white chocolate meringue buttercream meanwhile is both the perfect filler and topping.
A basic shortbread recipe can form the base of an array of different flavoured and shaped biscuits, as long as you have cookie cutters and a few extra ingredients such as lemon zest, glacé cherries, walnuts and desiccated coconut to hand. For a stained-glass effect, cut a star shape out from the centre of a rolled-out cookie and place a crushed boiled sweet in the space before baking. Once cooked and cooled, shower with icing sugar.