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These Christmas desserts are the perfect festive treats for the holidays! Browse everything from gingerbread to Christmas pudding.
The holidays can be crazy, to put it lightly! We love the Christmas season, but also feel the stress of trying to make something everyone will love! Here we’ve compiled our favorite Christmas desserts for holiday entertaining! We’ve got everything from showy pies and traditional Christmas pudding to easy cookies and peppermint hot chocolate. Along with a few of our favorite recipes from this website, we’re featuring selections from two top baking experts: Jocelyn Delk Adams of Grandbaby Cakes and Tessa Arias of Handle the Heat. Ready to get cooking?
And now…our top Christmas desserts for a crowd!
This classic Christmas pudding is a stunner! Top this bittersweet spongy pudding in a dreamy, creamy butter sauce and prepare to be amazed. It's 100 percent worth the effort and the perfect Christmas dessert to impress everyone around the table.
Here’s a holiday cookie we just can’t say no to. These Hot Chocolate Cookies taste just like the holiday drink! The cookie batter channels just the right flavor of the liquid chocolate: it’s textured with sugar crystals and studded with chocolate chunks. The best part? A marshmallow center ties it all together, forming a melty lake of gooey bliss. These are divine.
What's a better Christmas dessert than Peppermint Ice Cream? It tastes just like a peppermint stick, flavored with both extract and crushed candies. The texture is lusciously creamy, and the candy shards of red and white give it the perfect festive look. It’s fun to whip up at home and will wow everyone!
These molasses cookies...they're something special. This recipe makes soft and chewy cookies with a sugar-crisp exterior, infused with cozy, bold spices. Each one is fractured into picture-perfect crinkles, and when you sink in your teeth for the first bite, it's like being enveloped in a warm hug.
When it comes to Christmas desserts, this one takes the cake: Linzer cookies! This classic Austrian sandwich cookie is a delight: buttery almond shortbread sandwiches a layer of fruity preserves, making a treat that’s nuanced and just sweet enough. A fun cutout window in the sandwich shows the jam peaking through.
This chocolate bark recipe is sweet and salty, with a confetti of colorful ingredients and absolutely irresistible. It’s the best fun treat that makes a great gift. For a festive look use cranberries, pistachios, coconut and sea salt for the toppings, but it’s totally customizable based on your preferences.
These almond thumbprint cookies are total crowd pleasers. They're topped with a homemade jam made of real fruit, and the base is perfectly chewy, made mostly of almond flour. Drizzled with 1-minute powdered sugar icing, they're perfectly festive!
What's more classic of an easy Christmas dessert than gingerbread cookies? These are made with almond butter and applesauce to keep them soft. They're topped with chunky turbinado sugar for an all-natural glitter!
This apple crisp is absolutely classic, harnessing all that cozy nostalgia of the season. The crumble topping is the ideal texture: crispy but not crunchy, and buttery but not soft. The fruit layer below will make your heart sing: cinnamon, a hint of ginger and allspice set off just a hint of orange and lemon zest.
These Iced Applesauce Cookies are so moist and irresistible, you’ll forget about everything else as you savor each chewy bite. (Sorry, not sorry.) The applesauce makes them ultra moist, and they taste like an oatmeal cream pie! Top them with festive red and green icing for the holidays.
Here’s a warm and cozy Christmas dessert drink you won’t be able to stop sipping: the Peppermint Patty! This hot chocolate is spiked with not one but two liqueurs, adding both mint and chocolate flavors to the rich body of this drink. The amount of cozy flavor here is unreal.
This moist and perfectly spiced gingerbread cake is the ideal Christmas dessert! No holiday season is complete without a slice of this festive Bundt cake. Garnish with edible snowflakes to take it over the top. Via Grandbaby Cakes
This Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake is a classy Christmas dessert made to impress! It's filled with chocolate and bursting with peppermint flavor. The peppermint candies on top make for a festive look. Via Grandbaby Cakes
The ideal Christmas dessert? Cut out cookies! This simple dough is fun to work with for the best festive cookies. Via Handle the Heat
This moist and spiced buttered rum eggnog cake gets jazzed up with a sensational buttered rum sauce that soaks into every bite! It's a classic Christmas dessert that will impress everyone around the table. Via Grandbaby Cakes
These fun and festive easy Peppermint Oreo Truffles require no baking and just 6 ingredients. The chocolate exterior is smooth and snappy while the filling is thick, rich, slightly chewy. A Christmas favorite! Via Handle the Heat
How fun are these Gingerbread Brownies? they've got a thick and fudgy spiced brownie made with crumbled gingerbread cookies and topped with adorable mini gingerbread men. It's a deliciously festive Christmas dessert. via Handle the Heat
This Chocolate Pound Cake is calling your name! It's the most decadent, moist and delicious chocolate cake. Paired with a silky ganache glaze hinted with peppermint flavor, it's the ideal holiday dessert to impress everyone. Via Grandbaby Cakes
Here's a unique crinkle cookie for Christmas: Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies! These are thick and fudgy with just a hint of cocoa flavor. The ideal treat for Christmas! via Handle the Heat
Here's a fun Christmas dessert that works for anytime too: Butterscotch Pie! It's got a spiced Biscoff cookie crust, homemade butterscotch pudding filling, and is topped with creamy whipped cream. via Handle the Heat
What's better than gingerbread flavors at Christmastime? These Gingerbread Cookie Bars are ultra thick, soft, and chewy. They're topped with a generous layer of tangy frosting! via Handle the Heat
Why settle for Pecan Pie when you can have Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie? This one is packed with indulgent chocolate, spiced bourbon, and a deliciously sweet and gooey pecan filling. It's a showstopper of a Christmas dessert. Via Grandbaby Cakes
No Christmas dessert tray is complete without Turtles! Make this no bake treat at home: they've got chewy rich caramel, buttery pecans and creamy milk chocolate. The perfect salty-sweet treat! Via Grandbaby Cakes
Last up in our Christmas dessert ideas: are you a Baileys lover? This Baileys Chocolate Bundt Cake is moist and chocolatey and it's filled with a surprise: an Irish Cream flavored cream cheese filling. Via Grandbaby Cakes
This sticky toffee pudding is soaked and filled with glorious gooey and sticky butterscotch sauce, then topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A traditional Christmas dessert that everyone will rave about! via Immaculate Bites
More Christmas resources
Looking for more Christmas recipes? We’ve got you covered! Here are a few more holiday recipe collections for you to peruse:
- 40 Great Christmas Recipes
- 20 Easy Christmas Appetizers
- 25 Christmas Breakfast Ideas
- 25 Christmas Side Dishes
- 10 Best Healthy Christmas Cookies
- 15+ Vegetarian Christmas Dishes
- Vegan Christmas Dinner Recipes
- Best Holiday Drinks or Christmas Cocktails & Drinks
- Vodka Christmas Cocktails or Bourbon Christmas Cocktails
- Christmas Margarita or Christmas Martini
- Simple Christmas Cookies
25 Christmas Desserts: Christmas Cranberry Pudding & More!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
This cranberry pudding is a moist molasses cake covered in a rich butter sauce. It’s everything a traditional Christmas pudding should be!
Ingredients
For the Christmas cranberry pudding
- 12 ounces cranberries
- 2 2/3 cup flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 cup dark molasses
- 1 cup warm water
- Special equipment: Steamer with 9-inch round pan OR large stock pot and 9-inch round cake pan
For the butter sauce
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup half and half
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Slice the cranberries in half. Place them in a colander and rinse out the seeds.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gradually mix in the dark molasses and warm water. Fold in the cranberries.
- Grease the round pan and pour the cranberry mixture into the pan.
- Fill the steamer with water and place the pan in the steamer and cover with the lid. (If you don’t have a steamer, take a large stock pot and place an item in the bottom to elevate the cake pan, like a trivet, cookie cutter, empty tuna can, or folded dish towel. Then place the pan on top and fill the pot with water about half-way up the side of the pan.)
- Bring the water to a boil, and steam for about 2 ½ hours, checking the water level periodically, every 30 minutes or so, and refilling as needed. The pudding is done when you can insert a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean. Allow the pudding to cool. The pudding can also be made in advance and kept at room temperature or in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
- When ready to serve, make the butter sauce: in a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, stirring often. Stir in the half and half and the sugar, then add the vanilla. To serve, cut the pudding into pieces and drizzle with butter sauce.
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: British
- Diet: Vegetarian
Keywords: Christmas desserts