Christmas Cake — England
What is most commonly known as Christmas cake in most parts of the world is a variant of the English original. Essentially, it’s a plum/fruitcake, calling for candied or dried fruit, nuts, spices, and a healthy tot of warming spirits such as brandy, rum, wine or cognac. The British of course love to confuse the non-British and may often refer to their cake as “pudding” — but this is the real deal. A marzipan or fondant layer completes the English Christmas cake. Its delectable present-day avatar, however, descends from a less delicious origin. Plum pudding evolved out of “plum porridge/pottage” — beef boiled in a little water and a lot of wine, flavoured with onions and herbs, and thickened with bread.
Bolo Rei — Portugal
The Portuguese Bolo Rei is delightful, and not just for its appearance or taste. A custom associated with this Christmas cake is the hiding of a fava bean; the person who finds the bean in the slice served to them, must pay for the cake the next year. Bolo Rei is a bundt cake, meaning it is baked in a ring mould. When it is ready to serve, it resembles a crown adorned with crystallised fruit.
Rich Cake — Sri Lanka
Rich Cake, also known more simply as Sri Lankan Christmas Cake, is inspired by its English namesake, but introduces several modifications of its own. For one, the cake is baked with semolina, not all purpose flour. For another, local spices and spirits like arrack replace their more Anglicised counterparts. In some cases, treacle may be added to the batter. Sugar, butter, pumpkin preserve, cashews, eggs (a *lot* of eggs!), essences, honey, mixed fruit, jam, golden syrup feature prominently on most ingredients lists, although individual cooks tend to innovate even with these. The end result, however, is the same: a dense fruitcake that instantly makes the reason for its "rich" moniker evident.
Makowiec — Poland
This Polish Christmas pastry can be described as a roulade: Sweet bread is lavishly spread with a bittersweet poppy seed paste/filling, then rolled into a tight cylinder. Some cooks may replace the poppy seed filling with a paste made out of dried nuts instead, typically walnut or chestnut.
Crema de Fruta — Philippines
A layered Christmas cake unlike any other, the Philippines’ crema de fruta (Spanish: "fruit cream") comprises a base layer of sponge cake, followed by custard and cream, fresh fruits, and gelatin. Jam, sago and condensed milk are all popular crema de fruta accompaniments.
Pio Quinto — Nicaragua
The Nicaraguans aren’t playing any games when it comes from their Christmas dessert. The Pio Quinto comes soaked in rum, with a layer of custard on top, and a fine dusting of cinnamon. It’s a boozy, Christmassy treat that’ll put the right spin on your celebrations.
Black Cake — Jamaica
While associated with Jamaica, Black Cake is in fact widely consumed in other parts of the Caribbean as well. It is a rum-soaked fruitcake that would almost be mistaken for chocolate cake at first glance — so deep and intense is its colour. It also has a slightly fudgy appearance. (Purists insist the cake should have a pudding-like — ahem! — consistency.) The colour and its dense texture, however, come from the copious quantities of dried, macerated fruits (prunes, currants, raisins, glaced cherries soaked in red wine and dark rum) added to the batter.
Kurisumasu Keki — Japan
The Japanese forego rich plum/fruitcakes for a lighter, airier cake on Christmas. The “Kurisumasu Keki” is a delicate sponge cake loaded with white cream, plenty of fresh strawberries, and (sometimes) a marzipan finish. It is traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve. The custom is believed to have originated circa 1910, in a Yokohama bakery.
Allahabadi Cake — India
A fruitcake made distinctly Indian through the use of ingredients like Agra petha, tutti-frutti, saunf and ghee, this Christmas goodie sells like hot cakes (!) in its home city of Allahabad. Maida, eggs, sugar, marmalade, ginger and a variety of dried fruits and nuts (doused in rum) make this an unmissable festive treat.
Dundee Cake — Scotland
Named for the city in Scotland from which it originates, the Dundee cake has one vital ingredient, and it isn’t candied fruit/peel, which its less spirited Christmas cake cousins like to load themselves with. No, for the Dundee cake, it’s got to be fine Scotch whisky, and lots of it. A few currants, sultanas and raisins are allowed. Only ‘cause it’s Christmas.
Yule Log — France, Belgium, Switzerland, Lebanon, Canada, Vietnam
The Yule Log or bûche de Noël comprises a kind of sweet roulade made out of sponge cake and iced liberally with chocolate buttercream. A thin sheet cake is iced, then rolled into a cylinder and iced again to prepare the Yule Log. The name refers to the cake’s appearance: it is usually decorated to look like a real log.
Stollen — Germany
This traditional German fruitcake is also known as “Weihnachtsstollen” or “Christstollen”. The stollen loaf is more rustic in appearance than a fruitcake. It’s perhaps fair to note that “cake” is a bit of a misnomer; stollen is actually a bread. With nuts, spices, dried or candied fruit, covered in sugar or marzipan, this is a properly festive bread though..
Panettone (also, Pandoro and Pandolce) — Italy
Like the stollen, Italy’s preferred Christmas confection — the Panettone — is also categorised as a bread rather than a cake. But these are minor quibbles for a divine flour, candied fruit and raisin loaf. The dough goes through a curing process similar to sourdough. But Panettone isn’t the only thing Italians eat around Christmas. There’s the lofty Pandoro from Verona, and the decadent Pandolce from Genoa, that add sweetness and spice to Italians’ Christmas.