What Christmas Desserts Look Like Around the World

Every country has its own holiday food traditions. For example, in the US, they always eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Christmas and The New Year is a special time in the cultures of many nations, and every one of them has their own holiday menu.

Bright Side invites you to take a look at different Christmas desserts from different countries.

France

In France, they eat the so-called “yule log ” (bûche de noël). This dessert is a roll and the tradition comes from the Middle Ages when people would burn a Christmas log.

It is usually baked in a way so that it reminds you of a chopped tree, they also put powdered sugar on it that looks like snow.

England

December is the time when every English family eats Christmas pudding. The dessert is cooked several weeks before Christmas and is kept in a cold place. It is served on the first day of the holiday.

Most of the time, this pudding has dried fruit, nuts, and bacon fat.

Iceland

In Iceland, they cook a pie called vínarterta. It is also known as “striped lady cake” because it has many layers. It is made from alternating layers of almond and/or cardamom-flavored biscuits and plum jam. The jam also includes spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, and cloves. Vínarterta is served together with coffee.

Scotland

Scottish people love sweet foods. Every holiday has some sort of a sweet dessert. On Christmas, they bake puddings, cakes with apples, and make cranachan — a dessert with cream. It includes fried oatmeal with cream, whiskey, honey, and raspberry. It is served in glasses.

It is interesting that people in restaurants often have to mix cranachan by themselves: waiters just leave the necessary ingredients on the table.

Ireland

On Irish holiday tables, you can see an unusual dessert: Guinness cake. Even though this combination seems incredible, it is cooked with dark beer. But the dessert itself is not bitter at all.

Australia

In Australia, Christmas comes in the middle of summer. This is why the dessert they make has nothing to do with winter. The biscuits called rocky road are sweet and they are made from milk chocolate and colored marshmallows. They are sometimes made as cupcakes with ice cream.

Mexico

In South and Central America, they have a really popular cake called tres leches. Obviously, they use 3 kinds of milk to make it: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream.

Portugal

It’s hard to imagine Christmas in Portugal without their traditional bolo rei cake. This is a symbol of the season in Portugal and it is served the entire month of December up to January 6th.

The cake looks like a crown with sweet fruit and nuts on top of it.

Greece

Melomakarona comes from Greece where it is a usual Christmas dessert. It looks like sweet cookies with honey.

Hungary

In Hungary, they have a traditional Dobos cake. It consists of 6 layers of biscuits with chocolate cream and caramel.

When József C. Dobos created this dessert in 1885, he realized that it had a really important advantage: it can be eaten over 10 days!

Latvia

In Latvia, and also Estonia and Finland, on Christmas, you will definitely get the chance to eat cookies called piparkūkas. They contain ginger, pepper, and other spices.

Lithuania

And in Lithuania, they eat kūčiukai — small sweet cookies. This dessert is made from leavened dough and poppy seeds.

Italy

Panettone

Pandoro

On Christmas, you can eat panettone or pandoro. It is said that Italians are split into 2 conflicting groups depending on which of these 2 kinds of baked goods they prefer.

Panettone is a light, sweet pie with sweet fruit. The romantic version of the origin of this dessert says that one apprentice of a baker invented it for his love.

Pandoro is sweet yeast bread that looks like a pyramid and was created in Verona.

What desserts do you make in your family for The New Year and Christmas? Tell us in the comment section below.