Top five alternative Christmas puddings

Not a fan of rich, fat, fruity puddings? There are other options for dessert on Christmas Day. Here are five favourites that you can buy in the shops or online.

Chocolate terrine

Welsh company The Patchwork Traditional Food has taken terrine to a new level. Instead of the usual savoury flavours, they’ve created four different chocolate terrines especially for Christmas: amaretto and almond (almond-rippled dark chocolate with marzipan notes), Baileys Irish cream (suitably boozy), Cointreau (zesty with rich dark swirls), and Tia Maria with coffee (for lovers of the dark coffee liqueur from Jamaica).

Each one can be eaten as it is (perhaps with sweet biscuits or fruit), melted down into sauces or spreads, used in chocolate tarts, or enjoyed as a hot chocolate drink. It's £4.30 for one, and you can be assured of good quality – The Patchwork Traditional Food Company has won 100 awards to date.

How much? £4.30 for a 120g block

Where from? Online here or via ocado.com  

Snowy Lodge topped sponge puddings

Lidl always does well in Christmas pudding taste tests, and this year they’ve decided to extend their range to sponge-based festive desserts.  Apparently, the inspiration for their sponge collection came from the original Bath Pudding recipe found in Hannah Glasse’s ‘The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy’, first published in 1747. Bath Pudding is a sponge-type pudding made from ground rice, eggs, sugar, butter, almonds and plenty of booze.

The Snowy Lodge topped sponge pudding comes in two varieties: raspberry sauce and flaked almonds; or a zesty orange sauce with sweetened cranberries and orange peel strips. Both look very much like a traditional Christmas pudding. Fancy something a bit richer? Try Lidl’s melt-in-the-middle puddings instead: a chocolate bombe (with a hidden centre of rich Belgian chocolate ganache), or a toffee bombe (a moist toffee sponge filled with a sticky, sweet toffee sauce).

How much? £1.99 for a 300g pudding

Where from? Lidl

Gelatorino gelato-filled panettone

Gelatorino, a Covent Garden-based Italian gelateria, put a lot of effort into their ice creams (they hand-make it in front of customers all day, every day) and this year they’ve invented a gelato-filled panettone especially for the Christmas dinner table.

The fruity panettone is studded with plump sultanas and comes filled with either crème and Gianduja (a sweet, hazelnutty chocolate) ice cream, or Zabaione (an egg yolk, sugar and sweet wine concoction) and Gianduja ice cream. It would make a stunning centrepiece on any table, and is perhaps prettiest when cut open, revealing the stripes of filling inside.

How much? £24.95

Where from? Gelatorino, Covent Garden

Christmas Eve cake

Small West Yorkshire-based cake company Craggs Cakes say that their 'Christmas Eve cake' is "for people who don’t like Christmas cake". It has the same spices, fruit and nuts that a traditional Christmas cake has, but a combination of ground almonds and, unusually, beer (the only source of liquid) make for a wonderfully moist cake. The beer also lends a kind of bitterness, which contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the fruit, brown sugar and honey.

It’s a much lighter option than the original Christmas cake, and one with more complex flavours. ‘If you haven’t baked cakes with beer,’ say Craggs Cakes, ‘then you should try!’

How much? £12 for a 4” cake, £17 for 5”, £23.50 for 6”

Where from? Online from craggscakes.co.uk

The DIY option – Zuppa Inglese

Fancy making your own Christmas Day dessert? We’d recommend a Zuppa Inglese. It's not an English soup, as the name suggests, but an Italian trifle. Our recipe comes from the cookbooks of Gennaro Contaldo. “I am not sure where this recipe originates from, but it is suggested that the cooks of the Dukes of Este in Ferrara tried to recreate the English trifle after visits to England,” he said.

Zuppa Inglese is traditionally made with vanilla and chocolate crema pasticcera (custard) and alchermes (an aromatic, herb-infused, red-coloured liqueur), but here Contaldo uses Marsala, a Sicilian fortified sweet wine, instead. If you can’t find savoiardi biscuits, use sponge boudoir fingers. 

This Zuppa Inglese will look beautiful on your Christmas Day dinner table, and make a nice change from English trifle.

How much? We reckon the ingredients for one Zuppa Inglese will cost between £5-£10, depending on whether you already have Marsala or not. 

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