'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 incredibly well fed) over the holidays.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover how to make 41 brilliant festive cakes and bakes – counting down to our favourite Christmas recipe of all.
This elegant, amber-hued cake is a Christmas treat grown-ups will love. To make it, you'll need juicy raisins, spicy candied ginger, dried apricots (or pineapple), cashews and homemade caramel – plus a good glug of spiced rum (or a rum flavouring). For a final festive flourish, drizzle the bake with icing sugar and scatter it with chopped nuts.
A luxurious upgrade on 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.
Give your Christmas cake an island twist with ginger, prunes and dark rum, plus a pretty decoration of caramelised fruit. Make sure you leave plenty of time for this cake; you’ll want to get started a week before baking. That way, you'll have time to soak your fruit, ginger and rum – plus, the marzipan coating needs two days to dry before icing.
Traditional steamed suet puddings like this ginger plum duff are easily made vegetarian with the use of vegetable suet. For the best results, seal your pudding bowl tightly before steaming to prevent any moisture getting in. It's also a good idea to fold a pleat into your greaseproof paper and tin foil to allow for expansion. Your pudding should be fruity, spicy and delightfully moist, without being soggy.
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 are glazed with apricot jam for a glossy sheen. The wonderfully dense cake is very rich, so you’ll only need a tiny sliver.
These reindeer biscuits are a fun and simple bake to make with the kids. Buttery and rich, they contain ground almonds for added flavour and texture – and they'll hold their shape when you cut them out with a reindeer cutter (or other festive biscuit cutter of your choice). Decorate with buttercream and edible glitter for extra sparkle.
Use your favourite Irish cream to add a kick to this classic French dessert. It requires very few ingredients, but the technique side of things can be slightly tricky – so it’s best not to make your first attempt on Christmas Day. A handheld blowtorch will come in handy if you want to avoid burning the sugar.
Whether you’ve got leftover Christmas pudding to use up or you just want to put a seasonal spin on an apple crumble, this festive dessert is sure to satisfy. Plus, you can add any fruits you like, from prunes to tinned peaches. Serve with lashings of vanilla custard for a truly comforting festive dessert.
Why not shake things up by adding fragrant star anise to a classic chocolate fondant? There’s no need to be scared of these melt-in-the-middle treats – they might seem tricky, but they’re easy to turn out if you pay plenty of attention to detail. Watch them closely and remove them from the oven promptly for fondants that are crisp on the outside, but still wonderfully gooey in the centre.
A basic shortbread recipe can be used to create an array of different flavoured and shaped biscuits – so 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 the biscuits with icing sugar.
Warming ginger biscuits are just the thing for dunking at Christmas, whether it’s into milk, coffee, tea or hot chocolate. They’re one of the easiest biscuits you can make; there’s no need to get your dough to the right thickness or cut out any shapes. Simply roll the dough into small balls, which will spread out as they bake and form those distinctive ginger snap cracks.
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 pastry lid. Served in elegant slices with a drizzle of cream, this tart would make a lovely festive dessert.
This rich fruit cake will keep for up to three months in an airtight container, but we think it'll 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 blowtorch to give it a golden finish.
Nothing will get 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. To make it even more delicious, it's finished with a generous helping of light-as-air, slightly sweetened whipped cream.
You can use either 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. Meanwhile, the addition of fresh ginger adds a warming, festive element. Serve it up with scoops of vanilla ice cream for a dessert to remember.
Get the recipe for pineapple and ginger upside-down cake here
Not only does soaking pears in mulled wine imbue them with a beautiful red colour, but it also gives this cake an extra layer of richness and spice. The batter 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
Though you can buy great Christmas puddings in the shops, there’s something about preparing your own that builds anticipation for the big day. This pudding takes a good few hours to steam and, like Christmas cake, should be ‘fed’ with brandy every week or so to keep it moist. However, the result is well worth the effort.
Juicy stem ginger and dark chocolate come together in this moist and fruity loaf cake, which is also flavoured with aromatic Assam tea. Muscovado sugar lends it caramel notes, and chunks of ginger and chocolate pair well with the slightly citrussy taste of the cardamom. Slather a hefty slice of this tea bread with butter for the perfect afternoon treat.
Rich with mincemeat, walnuts and marzipan, this spiced bundt cake is a fantastic alternative to traditional Christmas cake or pudding. Mixing the batter is quick and easy, and the pretty shape created by the bundt tin means no fancy decoration is required; just dust some icing sugar over the top for a snowy finish.
Roulades look spectacular, and they aren't as difficult to make as you might think. So, why not have a go at making this decidedly grown-up chocolate and hazelnut version, courtesy of British baking queen Mary Berry? The sponge is filled with a decadently flavoured cream and topped with crunchy hazelnut praline – resulting in a sweet treat that will get everyone talking.
Little clementine sponges are a fun (and slightly lighter) alternative to traditional Christmas pudding – and we think a tart cranberry sauce is the perfect accompaniment. Serve them up with a dollop of whipped double cream for the ultimate indulgent treat.
Get the recipe for clementine sponges with cranberry sauce here
It's well worth baking your own mince pies – after all, who doesn't love crumbly homemade pastry? You can 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.
Panettone, the sweet Italian 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 appealingly hearty texture.
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 mostly an assembly job – unless you fancy making your own amaretti biscuits, custard and sponge fingers! Arrange the ingredients in an elegant serving dish, finishing with the infused whipped cream.
Chestnuts lend a little sweet earthiness to this fudgy chocolate cake. There's no flour in the recipe; instead, whisked egg whites give it volume and help to keep it light and fluffy. Serve it warm with ice cream, whipped cream or maybe even a scoop of crème fraîche to cut through the chocolate, or let it cool if you’d rather have it later – it'll taste just as good.
Best eaten fresh from the oven, madeleines are petite French cakes flavoured with citrus or spices. These ones contain ground almonds, making them especially moist, while cardamom and orange zest add a lovely festive zing. They’re fairly easy and speedy to make, although you'll need a shell-shaped madeleine tin in order to achieve the characteristic shape.
Get the recipe for orange, almond and cardamom madeleines here
This version of a Swedish krans (wreath) bread combines the flavours of apple, mixed peel and sultanas with cinnamon and sugar. The festive filling is spread over the dough before it’s rolled up – similar to how cinnamon buns are made. The dough is then formed into a ring, and cut and spread for the perfect tear-and-share treat. Finish with a citrussy lemon icing and a scattering of nuts.
A festive twist on classic pineapple upside-down cake, this version uses citrussy clementines, which turn slightly sour when cooked. The flavour works beautifully with the bittersweet caramel and heady cardamom – but if you can't find clementines at the supermarket, you can swap them for blood oranges or regular oranges.
Get the recipe for clementine and cardamom upside-down cake here
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.
These little pineapple and raisin bundt cakes are fun to make, utterly adorable to look at and delicious to eat. Tinned pineapple goes into the batter, and juice from the can is used to make a tasty 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).
Stollen is a sweet German bread studded with nuts, spices and candied fruit; traditionally, it 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 packed with cranberries, amaretto, orange zest, nutmeg and cardamom, and the marzipan core is irresistible.
What’s a Christmas dessert table without a meringue? This showstopping dessert stacks two homemade meringues with vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, whipped cream and fresh raspberries (though you can use thawed frozen fruit instead, if you prefer). It's the perfect sweet centrepiece – and it certainly won’t hang around for long.
These little soufflés take the warming flavours of gingerbread and put them into a dessert that’s as light as air. Soufflés may seem daunting, but just remember not to give into temptation – keep the oven door firmly shut until they’re done. Once they’re out, serve them straight away so they retain their impressive height.
Chocolate lovers will adore this rich yule log, which is covered in a sumptuous dark chocolate mousse. Give it extra festive appeal, especially for kids, by dusting it with edible glitter, chocolate stars or chocolate curls.
Light, cream-filled choux pastry éclairs are a welcome treat at any time of year – and these festive-themed ones are perfect for whipping up around Christmas. To make them wreath shaped, pipe the dough into rings. Once baked, glaze the éclairs with chocolate ganache, then decorate them with edible stars or icing sugar.
These Florentines are laced with crystallised ginger, almonds and orange zest – and they're dipped in a mixture of white and milk chocolate, resulting in a pretty marbled effect on one side. If you can resist eating them yourself, they'd make a brilliant edible Christmas gift.
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 scorched with a blowtorch or dusted with icing sugar.
This cake is truly celebration-worthy – so what better time 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.
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 snowy white chocolate meringue buttercream is both the perfect filler and topping.
These adorable gingerbread biscuits take less than half an hour to make, which leaves plenty of time for the fun part: decorating. Here's a nifty trick – the gingerbread men become reindeers when turned upside down (just ice on some antlers). If you don’t have a gingerbread man cookie cutter, you could try cutting out stars, hearts or Christmas trees by hand.
Get the recipe for gingerbread men and reindeer here
Now discover our ranking of Europe's most delicious cakes
Last updated by Laura Ellis.