Christmas desserts are a fun way to spoil your family and friends on Christmas Day. Choosing the best dessert will help you feel relaxed, organised and ready to celebrate! From cakes to cookies, meringues to tortes, this list has you covered for a relaxing and flavour packed Christmas Day.
Tips to Decide on the Best Christmas Dessert
When choosing your Christmas dessert recipe, it’s a good idea to consider the style and setting for your gathering. This will ensure you and your guests have the best and tastiest experience on the day!
- What season does Christmas fall in in your country? Will you be eating indoors or alfresco? In Australia, our Christmas season is summer, so we often enjoy cooling recipes like pavlova with whipped cream as a great way to cool down. If you’re used to a winter White Christmas, you and your guests might enjoy a warming dessert, such as our French pain d’epices, full of holiday spices instead.
- How many people will you be serving? For large groups, it might be easier to make a large dessert you know will feed a crowd. It might be even easier to make it in advance so you have more time to prepare the main course or socialise on the day. See below for more delicious ideas!
- What style of meal will you be having? Will it be for lunch or dinner? A traditional roast or something more modern? Heavy or light? Will you and your guests have room for a big and lavish dessert or prefer something light and refreshing?
- How much time (or energy) will you have on the day to prepare? Sometimes you’ll have plenty of time and helping hands to bring a more intricate dessert together on the day. Other times you might prefer to get the prep and cooking/assembling done the day before, or whip together a 5 minute recipe like eton mess, so you can spend more time relaxing with your guests.
No matter what you’re planning, we’ve sorted this amazing collection of Christmas desserts into categories to help you choose the best one to suit your Christmas Day plans!
Christmas Desserts from Around the World
Serve a crowd:
Make in advance:
Serve warm:
Serve cold:
Small Bites
Cookies & Biscuits
These Christmas dessert recipes are sure to bring new and exciting flavours to your celebrations. All you need to do now is decide: Which dessert will you try first?
And if you’ve already tried one or more of these tasty dishes, let us know how it turned out in the comments!
10 Comments
Cynthia | What A Girl Eats
15/10/2020 at 12:24 pmThank you for including my recipe! Pinned/tweeted and yummed!
Wandercooks
16/10/2020 at 5:42 pmYay! You’re welcome Cynthia. 🙂
Marcellina
09/10/2020 at 4:23 pmOk, so I had to go and get myself a cookie because after scrolling through this round up I was craving something to eat! Looks like I’ve found something new to add to my Christmas dessert and baking list – for me it’s Portuguese Kings cake and the Snowball cookies! YUM!
Wandercooks
12/10/2020 at 10:39 amHaha! Great to hear you got some new ideas Marcellina! Those snowball cookies look fab, and we can definitely say the Kings Cake was a winner on the Christmas table last year. 🙂
Elaina Newton (@TheRisingSpoon)
18/12/2015 at 11:58 amOh man, now I’m really craving something sweet! What a wonderful round-up of holiday goodies from around the world. I’d love a slice of that Japanese Christmas Cake right now! 🙂
Wandercooks
20/12/2015 at 7:46 pmIt’s so cute isn’t it! Glad you enjoyed and hope you can put some to good use this Christmas. 🙂
mjcapinha
15/12/2015 at 10:39 pmYeiiii you miss the Portuguese sweets…all over our country during the Christmas time we have wonderful deserts, like the “bolo rei”(king cake) a dow with fruit inside and decorate, only in Mardi gras they have something similar…. I have to update my blog and tell you all about our sweets
Sarah & Laura @ Wandercooks
15/12/2015 at 10:48 pmOh nooooo! Quick send us a link of your favourite and we’d love to add it as a bonus recipe for our readers 👍 the Bolo Rei sounds fascinating. Looking into them now… Haha
Christina @ Christina's Cucina
14/12/2015 at 2:04 amWhat a great collection of international recipes for Christmas! Thank you for including my Cranachan!
Wandercooks
14/12/2015 at 2:43 amYou’re welcome Christina, we can’t wait to make it! 😀