We eat an excessive amount of food during Christmas, so we rarely get to finish the Christmas pudding at our house, and the leftover puddings look more dilapidated and less appetizing as they hang around.
So, how to make the best out of these luscious leftovers, instead of storing for the next season?
With some fun and easy tricks, and your very personal recipes, you can give your leftover Christmas pudding a new life, with even extra flavours, forms and taste!
Here, we listed up 5 scrumptious dessert items and recipes you can make with leftover Christmas pudding.
- Christmas pudding ice-cream
- Christmas pudding strudel
- Christmas pudding trifle
- Christmas pudding truffle
- Christmas pudding yule log
Let’s take a look!
1. Christmas Pudding Ice-cream
Rather than custard or cream, if the crumbled pieces of leftover Christmas pudding is served with scooped vanilla ice-cream and toffee sauce, toasted chopped hazelnuts on the top, the concoction will be too hard to resist!
Chilled and creamy on the outside, meld fruits, spices and cheese on the inside, this post-Christmas dessert will bring you back to the celebration just with every scoop of indulgence!
Ingredients:
- 500g crumbled leftover Christmas pudding
- 150g mixed dried fruits (50g raisins, 50g sultanas, 50g dried cherries)
- 1 cup fresh frozen cranberries
- 1 or 2 cups of vanilla ice cream (according to your preference)
- ½ cup brandy
- 1 table spoon of citrus juice or zest (e.g. orange)
- ½ table spoon of grated nutmeg
- 35 gm toasted and finely chopped hazelnuts
- 2-3 cinnamon sticks
- 1 table spoon of raspberries for serving
3 easy steps to prepare ice-cream with Christmas pudding:
- Step-1: Mix all the dried fruits, frozen cranberries with the brandy along with the citrus juice and let them soak in booze for 3-4 hours or overnight.
- Step-2: Take the ice cream out of the fridge and soften it slightly. Add the mixed fruits with the ice cream and cover it in a plastic wrap. Refreeze the mixture.
- Step-3: Serve the mixed ice cream with crumbled Christmas pudding. Add hazelnuts, cinnamon sticks and raspberries along with it.
The best thing about Christmas pudding ice cream is, you can experiment with the ingredients as much as you can with the little time that you have in hand!
2. Christmas Pudding Strudel
Despite not being the part of Australian tradition, strudel has always been loved by all of us during Christmas because of its oozing goodness of layered texture and unique flavour in between.
Adding the crammed leftover Christmas pudding in between the layers of crispy textures, you can make a fusion of classic Christmas sweetness as a Boxer’s day special! Don’t forget to splash some fresh cream, fruit custard, chocolate syrup or even scoops of ice cream to turn it into the ultimate descendant treat!
Ingredients:
- 400g crumbled Christmas pudding
- 125g melted butter
- 150g demerara sugar
- 250g tub mascarpone
- 5 previously prepared/ bought filo pastry sheets (made from flour, egg yolk, water, oil)
- 25g melted butter
- 2 table spoons of baileys
- 1 table spoon icing sugar
3 easy steps to prepare strudel with Christmas pudding:
- Step-1: Mix the crumbled pudding, mascarpone and baileys all together. Lay out the one filo pastry sheet on a flat baking tray and brush it with melted butter. Lay another filo sheet on top of it. Repeat and make 5 layers of pastry filo.
- Step-2: place the strudel filling or the mix in the center and roll up the filo to enclose the filling. Brush the borders and the upper surface with the remaining melted butter. Chill the rolled up strudel for 1 day up until you want to bake it.
- Step-3: Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas. Bake the roll for 20-25 mins 6 until golden brown. Once it’s baked, serve it with warm custard, cream or chocolate sauce. As mentioned above, ice cream could be a good summer alternative as well.
3. Traditional English Trifle with Christmas Pudding
Because of its unapologetically dense and rich fruit-cake texture, it may be a bit too much of a push after a heavy Christmas-meal dessert to some. But whether it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving, traditional English trifle is everyone’s ultimate favourite- soother to digest with a blast of different flavours.
In typical trifle recipe, sponge or pound cake is used as its base. This time around, replace sponge cake with the leftover Christmas pudding, for the Christmas dessert delight!
Ingredients:
- 500g leftover Christmas pudding (crumbled)
- 300ml double cream/ready-made custard
- 300ml whipped/double cream
- 150g mascarpone
- Handful of toasted flaked almonds
- Grated white and dark chocolate
- 2 table spoons of dry sherry
- Handful of peeled clementine, pears
3 easy steps to prepare traditional English trifle with Christmas pudding:
- Step-1: grab the trifle serving bowl and spread the crumbled Christmas pudding on the bottom of it. Sprinkle some peeled and chopped pears, clementine and sherry on top of it.
- Step-2: Whisk the custard and mascarpone together and spread a layer on top of the first layer. Make 2-3 more layers with this repeated process.
- Step-3: Once the serving bowl is filled with trifle layers, sprinkle toasted almonds, grated chocolates for the perfect garnishing.
4. Christmas Pudding Truffle
Dainty and delicious bite-sized truffles are the perfect dessert treats for Christmas already. With an addition of the leftover Christmas pudding, you can make earthly pieces of aromatic sweetness, too delicious to resist.
Drizzle the crumbled Christmas pudding, add liquid chocolate or caramel for creamer and fuzzier texture. Whisk all the ingredients until it’s smooth and ready to be scooped. On top of these Christmas truffles, you can add granolas for the ultimate taste of Christmas in every bite.
Ingredients:
- 750g smashed Christmas pudding (coarse crumbs, using food processor)
- 200g coarsely chopped white chocolate
- 200g coarsely chopped dark chocolate
- 2 table spoons of Brandy
- Melted butter
- Handful of quartered and thinly sliced red and green cherries
- 2 tea spoons of vanilla essence
- Baking sheet
3 easy steps to prepare truffle with Christmas pudding:
- Step-1: Place the butter and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl on top of a saucepan which is half filled with water. Stir and mix the ingredients and make it liquidy smooth. Once it’s done, turn off the stove and add brandy, vanilla essence and crumbled Christmas pudding into the concoction. Keep stirring up until it’s fully mixed.
- Step-2: On the baking tray, lay the baking sheet. Take small balls or canapés of the mixture with hands and place them on the tray. Freeze the canapés for approximately 45-60 minutes.
- Step-3: Just like the dark chocolate, melt the white chocolate similarly. Once it’s fully melted and smooth, spread and drizzle the melted white chocolate over the truffles. Use the chopped cherries for garnishing.
5. Christmas Pudding Yule Log
Yule log is a very traditional Christmas cake, served on Christmas dinner table right next to Christmas pudding! So when you have some leftover Christmas pudding laying around, turning the pieces into the Christmas pudding yule log can be a great way to serve these two most iconic Christmas desserts in one!
Crumble the Christmas pudding into the cake mixture and prepare the rest of the regular procedure. The Christmas pudding yule log’s fuzzy and creamy texture outside with fruity goodness inside may be devoured overnight this time around, you never know!
Ingredients:
- 500g Crushed Christmas pudding
- 5 eggs (separated yolks and whites)
- 90g all-purpose flour
- 2 table spoon of baking powder
- 284ml pot double sugar
- 2/3 cup caster sugar
- 200g icing sugar
- 50g butter
- 85g golden caster sugar
- 284ml pot double cream
- ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 200g coarsely chopped dark chocolate
- Colorful sprinkles and other edible Christmas decorations according to your preference
3 easy steps to prepare yule log with Christmas pudding:
- Step-1: In a large baking bowl, whisk the sugar, icing sugar, baking powder and egg yolks with an electric egg beater. Make a foamy yet thick mixture. Melt the dark chocolate with 4 tablespoons of water in the microwave and mix it with the egg gently.
- Step-2: Spread the mix on the baking tray evenly with a spatula and bake it in the preheated microwave for 20 minutes. Once the sponge mix is baked, let it cool off.
- Step-3: Once it’s cooled off, spread a mixed layer of double cream and crumbled Christmas pudding on top of it and roll it out gently like a log. Freeze it overnight and serve by cutting into slices.
Wrapping up
If the Christmas pudding has been laying in the fridge 2-4 days after Christmas, don’t wait any longer to turn it into something even greater as a post-Christmas dessert blast!
There are plenty of add-on, toppings, homemade sauces from renowned supplier of the gourmet puddings you can serve with the leftover Christmas pudding. So go ahead with new flavors and textures in conjunction with dense Christmas pudding. And that’s how you can make delicious Christmas pudding, served for all seasons!