30 Festive Christmas Desserts to Make This Season
Select a centerpiece-worthy dessert recipe or a simple seasonal treat for parties.
From rich peppermint brownies to a stunning Chocolate-and-Citrus Cassata, the best Christmas desserts are sure to bring a little extra holiday cheer to your table. We've gathered more than two dozen options so that you can find the perfect dish to round out your dinner, be it crowd-pleasing Sticky Toffee Pudding, bright green Putri Salju Pandan, or a decorative pavlova wreath. Treat your guests or hosts to traditional Christmas desserts from the simple pleasure of gingerbread to the pageantry of Bûche de Noël and Croquembouche with these festive recipes.
Pavlova with Caramelized White Chocolate Bark
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Christine Keely
This pavlova wreath is dolloped with vanilla whipped cream, sprinkled with fresh raspberries and pistachios, and adorned with an enchanting toasted white chocolate bark.
Bûche de Noël with Mascarpone Cream and Dark Chocolate Ganache
A few smart moves make this Bûche de Noël a cut above the rest. Allowing the cake to cool while still rolled helps prevent cracking. Mascarpone stabilizes the whipped cream filling so that it can be chilled overnight without weeping. Butter and corn syrup in the ganache keep it smooth and glossy. And stirring slivered toasted almonds into the ganache frosting gives it a "tree bark" look and adds contrasting texture to the silky filling and tender cake.
Chestnut Pavlova
Nigella Lawson's chestnut pavlova recipe is fabulously festive: an exuberant, rich, and luxurious treat for the holidays. The meringue base is crisp on the outside with a soft marshmallowy interior, topped with sweetened chestnut puree followed by swaths of softly whipped cream and splinters of bitter chocolate.
Chocolate-and-Citrus Cassata
To decorate this spectacular holiday dessert, use an offset spatula, a bench scraper, and a cake turntable for the smoothest cake with straight sides. Prevent air bubbles from forming in the dark chocolate ganache glaze by using a spatula to stir the melting chocolate.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
These luscious sticky toffee puddings are all about the honeyed sweetness of plump dates and creamy caramel. A touch of corn syrup ensures that the caramel stays silky smooth, while a bit of vanilla in the cake complements its richness.
Spiced Pavlovas with Oranges and Mulled Wine Caramel
These individual pavlovas represent a mash-up of Food & Wine editor Melanie Hansche's Bavarian and Australian upbringing. The aromas and ingredients of a Bavarian Christmas market — glühwein, toasted almonds, spiced cookies — are infused into the components of the classic Australian dessert: a base of sweet, cinnamon-spiced meringue topped with fresh, tangy quark, and crowned with bright citrus and intense mulled wine caramel.
Chocolate Cardamom Cream Tart with Pistachio-Sesame Brittle
This elegant tart gets complex depth from a combination of bittersweet and milk chocolate, and plenty of richness from heavy cream. A touch of cardamom in the custard and the whipped-cream topping, plus the contrasting crunch of homemade nut brittle, takes this dessert to the next-level.
Tropical Mendiants
Pastry chef Paola Velez's stunning mendiants are surprisingly easy to make with her simple method for tempering chocolate in the microwave. Piped into rounds, the chocolates are topped with a colorful mix of tropical fruit, toasted nuts, and seeds. Like mini, open-faced chocolate candy bars, the mendiants can be made ahead and served right from the fridge.
Butterscotch Pudding Parfait with Gingersnap Crumble
Classic butterscotch pudding is enhanced with tangy whipped crème fraîche and warm, spicy gingersnap crumble to make a beautiful parfait.
Goat Cheese Cake with Wine-Poached Cranberries
Pastry chef Claudia Fleming's holiday cheesecake is extra creamy thanks to a combination of tangy goat cheese and mascarpone. It's crowned with candied pistachios and draped in tart, glistening cranberry gelée.
S'mores Linzer Cookies
Swapping graham flour and hazelnut meal for the all-purpose flour and almond meal gives these linzer-inspired cookies the flavor of s'mores. With marshmallow creme sandwiched between them and a drizzle of melted bittersweet chocolate on top, they're a festive reminder of the campfire classic.
Old Fashioned Doughnut Croquembouche
Pastry chef Paola Velez's variation on a traditional croquembouche features homemade cinnamon doughnuts instead of cream puffs.
Cocoa Cola Bundt Cake
Cookbook author Vallery Lomas flips tradition on its head by making a cola-flavored cake with cola-flavored icing. The key is in the Coca-Cola syrup. Lomas concentrates the cola by reducing it with sugar and adding a bit of lemon juice and then she mixes the syrup into both the cake and the icing.
Basque Cheesecake
2020 F&W Best New Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph bakes a perfectly creamy cheesecake, minus a water bath or risk of a cracked or sunken top, by incorporating whipped cream cheese with heavy cream to make the batter.
Sour Cherry–Cheesecake Trifle with Black Pepper and Saba
Pichet Ong's riff on a proper British trifle retains the classic form while reinventing the components. Cheesecake stands in for egg custard; pound cake replaces ladyfingers. Rather than sherry, Ong's trifle uses saba, a syrup made from cooking down grape must, which has a flavor similar to balsamic vinegar.
Triple Chocolate–Peppermint Cookies
The peppermint bark in these cookies is simple to make and adds a beautiful pop of color and flavor in each cookie.
Coconut Arroz con Leche Tamales
Lightly sweetened coconut rice pudding provides a custardy contrast to the tender masa in these dreamy dessert tamales. Drizzled with sweet and buttery goat's milk caramel, they also make a festive holiday breakfast.
Vegan Coconut-Ginger Caramels
For these ginger- and chile-spiked caramels, plant-based fat from coconut replaces the typical butter, resulting in creamy, chewy caramels that are perfect for anyone on your gift list. Thai chile brings complex, fruity heat to these fragrant caramels; substitute a pinch of crushed red pepper, if desired. To package them to give as gifts, individually wrap caramels in parchment paper.
Triple-Ginger Rye Cookies
Hearty rye flour paired with three types of ginger — powdered, candied, and fresh — lends an earthy, lightly spicy flavor to these holiday cookies.
Cornmeal Cake Trifle with Sabayon and Candied Kumquats
Layers of crumbly cornmeal cake and fresh and candied citrus float on billowy drifts of barely boozy sabayon, topped with sweet, crisp peaks of toasted Italian meringue.
Orange-Anise Croquembouche with White Chocolate
Wow your loved ones with this stunning tower of cream puffs, which seems more challenging to make than it actually is (seriously — only one hour of active time on your part).
Chocolate-Peppermint Brownies
These rich peppermint brownies topped with crushed candy canes are from London's cult-favorite bakery Violet. If you can't find candy canes, use striped peppermint candies.
Gingerbread and White Chocolate Mousse Trifle
This trifle is three desserts in one: mousse, gingerbread, and caramel. Each part is delicious on its own, too.
Putri Salju Pandan (Pandan-Flavored Indonesian "Snow White" Cookies)
Traditionally in Indonesia, Putri Salju ("Snow White" or "Snow Princess") cookies are made with almonds, peanuts, or cashews inside and are popular during the holidays, including Christmas, Ramadan, and Chinese New Year. League of Kitchens cooking instructor Shandra Woworuntu adds pandan flavoring and omits the nuts, making them more cakey than crispy. Pandan, a tropical plant with fragrant leaves that's a popular flavoring in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, imparts a vanilla-citrusy flavor and a naturally vivid green color to these cookies.
Cherry-and-Chocolate Bûche de Noël
Pastry chef Dominique Ansel's version of bûche de noël is lighter than many, thanks to the beaten egg whites in the batter and the use of whipped cream in place of buttercream as frosting.
Kourampiedes (Greek Christmas Cookies)
Blanched and toasted almond pieces bring a lovely crunch to these crumbly, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth Greek Christmas cookies. Some versions of kourampiedes add orange zest, but League of Kitchens Greek cooking instructor Despina Economou prefers the simple flavors of butter, sugar, almonds, and vanilla.
Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Fluff
Chef Michael Voltaggio grew up eating these cakey, vanilla-cream-filled whoopie pies. Rolling the edges in crushed candy canes makes for a festive holiday treat.
Gingerbread Roll with Cinnamon Cream
Jennifer Giblin's riff on a bûche de Noël combines tender ginger cake with a tangy cream-cheese filling.
Alfajores de Maizena (Sandwich Cookies Filled with Dulce de Leche)
Extra-thick dulce de leche between two buttery cookies rolled in shredded coconut all add up to the perfect bite in these alfajores de maizena. Argentinian League of Kitchens instructor Mirta Rinaldi uses a generous amount of cornstarch in the dough so the cookies remain tender and soft after baking.
Spiced Gingerbread Cookies
These gingerbread cookies have a tender and cakey texture, yet they're sturdy enough to decorate. The recipe yields about two dozen large cookies — you can keep them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to five days.
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