Here at Honest Cooking we start thinking about Christmas baking somewhere around the first properly cold morning, which is either very organised or slightly unhinged depending on who you ask. Stollen, panettone, black cake, pepparkakor, something with cardamom in it. The list gets away from us every year. The useful thing we have learned is that Christmas baking splits by country before it splits by category, because every December tradition solves a different problem. Panettone anchors the Italian side of the table, its leftover loaf built into cream, bread pudding and French toast rather than eaten plain. Dutch and Central European baking goes savory-sweet instead, built on cardamom, aniseed and pearl sugar where vanilla would otherwise sit. Caribbean rum cakes and black cakes need weeks of dried fruit soaking in rum before they see an oven at all, so start those well before Thanksgiving. Bake whatever needs the longest lead time first, and here are the ones we keep coming back to.
Jump to: Italian Tradition · Central & Northern European Tradition · Caribbean & Spiced Holiday · American & Everyday Classics
Italian Tradition
1 · Mascarpone Cream with Liqueur for Italian Panettone
Whip the mascarpone with a splash of liqueur rather than folding it in cold, and it turns into a cloud-light topping instead of a dense spread over the panettone slices. It’s the fix for a dry, store-bought panettone that no amount of just slicing thicker will solve.
Get the recipe: Mascarpone Cream with Liqueur for Italian Panettone
2 · Panettone Bread Pudding with Dulce de Leche Sauce and Whipped Cream
Stale panettone actually works better here than fresh, since the drier crumb soaks up the custard without turning to mush. It’s the second life for the panettone loaf nobody finished, and honestly better than the bread itself was on its own.
Get the recipe: Panettone Bread Pudding with Dulce de Leche Sauce and Whipped Cream
3 · Chocolate and Mascarpone Panettone French Toast
The panettone’s built-in candied fruit and raisins mean this French toast needs almost no added sugar, just butter and a hot pan. It’s a smarter breakfast for the leftover loaf than another slice plain, and it makes Boxing Day morning feel like its own occasion.
Get the recipe: Chocolate and Mascarpone Panettone French Toast
4 · Fiori di Sicilia Citrus Chiffon Cake
A few drops of fiori di Sicilia go a long way, so measure carefully; the vanilla-citrus oil is strong enough to overpower the cake if you’re heavy-handed. It’s a lighter finish to a heavy meal than most Christmas desserts on this list, and it doesn’t need a rich sauce to work.
Get the recipe: Fiori di Sicilia Citrus Chiffon Cake
5 · Sicilian Orange Cake
Orange zest and honey soak into the crumb while the cake is still warm, which is what keeps a Sicilian orange cake moist for days after baking. It’s a good make-ahead dessert for a table already stretched thin on oven space during the panettone rush.
Get the recipe: Sicilian Orange Cake
Central & Northern European Tradition
6 · Kerstkransjes – Dutch Christmas Cookie Recipe
These wreath-shaped almond cookies get an egg wash brushed on twice, once before baking and again halfway through, for a crackled sugar top. They’re one of the few things on this list that bake in under twenty minutes, useful when everything else in the oven needs hours.
Get the recipe: Kerstkransjes – Dutch Christmas Cookie Recipe
7 · Dutch Sugar Loaf
Pearl sugar folded straight into the bread dough caramelizes as it bakes, leaving crackly pockets across the top of the loaf. It’s closer to a sweet bread than a cake, so slice it thick and set it out for breakfast rather than after dinner.
Get the recipe: Dutch Sugar Loaf
8 · Dutch-Indonesian Spekkoek
Each thin layer of this spice cake gets browned individually under the broiler before the next goes on, which is why a proper spekkoek can take hours to build. It’s the most labor-intensive thing on this whole page, and the one to make when you actually want to show off.
Get the recipe: Dutch-Indonesian Spekkoek
9 · Kalács – Traditional Hungarian Sweet Braided Bread
A tight braid and an egg wash brushed on twice give kalács its glossy, defined crust, the same way a good challah gets its shine. It’s less sweet than most things on this list, which makes it the loaf to put out next to the coffee rather than the desserts.
Get the recipe: Kalács – Traditional Hungarian Sweet Braided Bread
10 · Cinnamon and Cardamom Swirl Bread
Rolling the dough tight before slicing is what keeps the cinnamon-cardamom swirl from unraveling once the loaf goes into the oven. The cardamom is what separates this from a plain cinnamon roll, giving it a warmer, more Scandinavian edge that’s easy to miss until it’s gone.
Get the recipe: Cinnamon and Cardamom Swirl Bread
Caribbean & Spiced Holiday
11 · Trinidad Black Rum Cake for the Holidays
Dried fruit soaks in rum for weeks, sometimes months, before it goes anywhere near the batter, so start this one well ahead of December. It’s the cake with the longest lead time on this whole page, but also the one guests remember a year later and ask you to make again.
Get the recipe: Trinidad Black Rum Cake for the Holidays
12 · How to Make Caribbean Black Cake
Burning the sugar down to a deep, almost black caramel is the step that gives this cake its color and its name, and it takes real patience over the stove. Once made, it keeps for months wrapped tight, so it’s less a Christmas Day dessert than a project started back in October.
Get the recipe: How to Make Caribbean Black Cake
13 · Rum Glazed Eggnog Bread
Actual eggnog goes into the batter here, not just the spices, so the bread stays custardy in the center under a rum glaze. It’s a smarter use for the extra carton in the fridge than pouring another round of glasses nobody’s going to finish.
Get the recipe: Rum Glazed Eggnog Bread
American & Everyday Classics
14 · Rosemary Garlic Challah Bread
A savory twist on a classic braided bread, this challah gets its color from egg wash alone, with rosemary and garlic folded straight into the dough instead of butter brushed on top. It’s the one to set out with the roast instead of the desserts, since the whole table isn’t sweet.
Get the recipe: Rosemary Garlic Challah Bread
15 · Cranberry Pecan Bread
Toasted pecans go in whole, giving every slice of this quick bread real crunch instead of just a background hint of nut. It’s less sweet and less fussy than most things on this list, so it earns a spot on a breakfast table that’s otherwise all pastry and glaze.
Get the recipe: Cranberry Pecan Bread
16 · Rainbow Cake with Natural Dyes: A Vibrant, All-Natural Celebration Cake
Beet, turmeric, and spinach juice color each layer here instead of food dye, which mutes the colors slightly but keeps the cake from tasting like anything but vanilla. It’s the cake to make for a kid’s table that wants spectacle without a chemical aftertaste in every bite.
Get the recipe: Rainbow Cake with Natural Dyes: A Vibrant, All-Natural Celebration Cake
17 · Chocolate Cake Truffles
Crumbled cake mixed with frosting and rolled into balls before a chocolate coating is what turns leftover cake scraps into a whole new dessert. They freeze well for weeks in an airtight container, so any cake failure from earlier in the season gets a second life instead of the trash.
