Your best Christmas desserts

[Bemyclementine]

Homemade suggestions for something really lovely please!

We make a banofee triffle.

Slices of choc or vanilla swiss roll as base.

Pour on what ever alcohol you fancy till wet.

Sliced fresh banana layer over that.

Make a fresh caramel (normal or salted) recipe:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4961832-your-best-christmas-desserts
pour it carefully over the banana and cake to get it in all the gaps.

Then once it's totally cool spread on loads of whipped cream and put some pecan nuts on top 😄

No hang on here's the caramel recipe !

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-salted-caramel-recipe/

A mincemeat and apple crumble. Or a ditto pie.

About 2/3 apples to 1/3 mincemeat.

Hmm. For a family dinner I’m planning to do two puddings: the first Nigella’s clementine cake, as mentioned above, and the second a shop-bought chocolate torte-type thing. I was thinking as one is quite light and the other very indulgent everyone should be pleased by at least one option. My family aren’t really big on trifles, and nobody likes traditional dried fruit type stuff. Does that sound ok?

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/dec/09/christmas-dessert-recipe-chocolate-chestnut-prune-cake-rachel-roddy

My contribution is the chocolate raspberry cheesecake brownie. It goes down a bomb with the chocolate and the cheesecake lovers at any gathering. It's not a 'ta-da!' type dessert but the colours are quite festive now I think about it and a plate of them at teatime or on Boxing Day don't last long!

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/members/grey-birds-raspberry-cheesecake-brownies

Zuccotto. There are many recipe variants online, though none look quite like the one I use. It's a slight faff (which makes it Christmassy, of course) but it's not difficult.

Am I the only one that has had fails from nigella recipes. Totally put me off as I wonder if she’s ever cooked some of them!

Agree madaboutmad
I'm very cautious around her recipes

These all sound ace

I made some Nigella brownies once that were an utter disaster. Never trusted her brownie recipes again. Her chocolate Guinness cake recipe, on the other hand, is a masterpiece.

My mil always comes for Christmas and always makes her sublime raspberry pavlova!

That's interesting about others' experience with Nigella recipes. I have several 'go to' Nigella cakes and puddings that work every time. They are mostly from her older books such as How to Eat and Domestic Goddess so maybe that's the difference.

Incidentally the raspberry cheesecake brownie is not actually a Nigella recipe. (I think it's from Delicious magazine about 20 years ago). I don't know now whether Not Nigella is a recommendation or not but I have made them more times than I can count and I think they are pretty foolproof!

@therealcookiemonster Do you have a recipe for your rice pudding, sounds amazing.

Nigella's chocolate cloud cake is ace! She has it in the Easter section of Feast decorated with mini-eggs but it would also be amazing dressed up for Christmas with say marron glacé or long chocolate curls.

I haven't tried the Guinness cake. I must give it a go as I'm very partial to Guinness...

Lemon & raspberry bread and butter pudding made with chocolate chip brioche.

Sorry pressed send too soon!

Split the brioche rolls (enough for two layers) and spread with lemon curd. Put the first layer in and top with raspberries (frozen ones are great). Repeat these layers once more - or however many you like.

Pour over a can or carton of ready made custard and leave for it all to soak in. Just before baking sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake at 180 / Gas 5ish for about 30 minutes. Serve yourself first because it will all go ☺️.

hi @DuvetCovers
I am afraid I kind of made this up a little (based on a bengali dessert) and I never measure 😅but you can easily do by eye. it's best done with a slow cooker. take 1 cup basmati rice (buy tilda, it's good). wash at least 4/5 times with lots of cold water until water runs clear. put it in a deep non stick pan and put 3 cups water, a pinch of salt and cook until mushy. you might have to keep topping up the water periodically. this will take 15 mins or so. Once mushy, leave to cool slightly, then add 2/3 cups of whole milk, a whole green cardammom pod, 1 cinnamon stick, saffron strands (use real persian saffron, amazon has some good ones, not ones available in supermarket) and sugar to taste and cook on the lowest possible setting available. use a slow cooker/instant pot on slow cooker setting if you have one. keep stirring every 10/15 mins (can leave for longer if you have slow cooker). After 2 hours add almond flakes, few table spoons. keep cooking as long as you like, the longer the better, I cook mine for 6 hours. towards the end add double cream (don't cook for longer than 10 mins after this) - about 50 ml should do it but feel free to add more (just add a table spoon at a time until it has a consistency you like) and rose syrup (I use monin), a few tea spoons. some people like a small flavour, so just as per your taste. then after switching off heat, add golden sultanas (not raisins). you can have it warm, but this is best served chilled. the texture should be very thick. top with chopped nuts (pistachios/almonds), rose petals, more sultanas etc. before serving. photo of previous attempt attached. also had sweet rice on the side (sounds weird, but really works)

Oh wow thank you so much for writing it for me, I really appreciate it. I shall definitely give it a try, sounds wonderful.

I do too, but it’s put me off randomly diving in to do something new. Mary Berry, I’d cook her stuff first time to serve to guests; you know she’s made them as they always work.

Ooh, Winterberry trifle 😍. It's a Waitrose recipe and it's the best trifle I've ever tasted!

Tiramisu trifle, a BBC good food recipe.

We made it just for the two of us, and kept sneaking spoonfuls every time we went to the fridge

I’ve had some epic fails with Nigella recipes, some of which I’m convinced contain major errors. But then I would never cook anything first time to serve to guests as I’ve also had spectacular failures from other well known cooks (although not Mary Berry)z

Some lovely recipe ideas. Bookmarking!

Traditional sherry trifle
For base i use jam swiss roll mixed with 1 bag frozen raspberries and a generous glug of sherry/port/masala allowed to soak in and thoroughly mixed
Then top with ready made custard of choice and extra thick cream.
Yum