This festive season, acclaimed food writer Skye McAlpine offers a delightful twist on traditional Christmas desserts with two spectacular recipes designed to be prepared well in advance. Her creations promise to bring both elegance and ease to the holiday table, featuring a show-stopping salted caramel zuccotto masquerading as a Christmas pudding and a sophisticated, wobbly pomegranate Campari jelly.
A Festive Illusion: The Salted Caramel Zuccotto
McAlpine's first recipe presents a clever culinary sleight of hand. While technically a zuccotto – an Italian dome-shaped dessert featuring ice-cream – this creation bears an uncanny and charming resemblance to a classic Christmas pudding. The author confesses to taking "disproportionate pleasure" in this festive deception. Beyond its visual appeal, the dessert's greatest virtue is its practicality; it can be assembled and frozen weeks before needed, then simply whisked from the freezer to the table.
The recipe calls for two litres of salted caramel ice-cream, though McAlpine encourages cooks to use any favourite flavour or even create colourful layered stripes with different varieties. The ice-cream is encased in a shell made from 500g of panettone slices, generously drizzled with 120ml of marsala wine. This assembly is then frozen solid before being cloaked in a rich glaze of 260g of dark chocolate and 150g of salted butter, and finished with a white chocolate ganache and a decoration of redcurrants.
The total preparation time is around 40 minutes, with just over an hour and three-quarters needed for freezing, and it generously serves between 12 and 14 people.
The Grown-Up Jelly: Pomegranate and Campari
McAlpine's second offering reimagines a childhood favourite with a decidedly adult flair. Her pomegranate Campari jelly provides a ruby-red, melt-in-the-mouth delight that contrasts with the firmer, more gelatinous textures often remembered from youth. The inclusion of sparkling booze, she notes, makes the dessert feel "very grown-up."
This jelly is not only visually stunning but also practical and inclusive. It is gluten-free, dairy-free, and must be made ahead of time, making it an ideal, low-effort option for dinner parties where dietary restrictions may be a consideration. The recipe combines 175ml each of Campari and pomegranate juice with 400ml of prosecco, set with 16g of gelatine leaves.
Requiring only 5 minutes of active preparation and 15 minutes of cooking before setting overnight, the dessert serves 8 to 10. McAlpine provides careful instructions for unmoulding the delicate jelly, finishing it with a sprinkling of fresh pomegranate seeds.
Expert Tips for Festive Success
Both recipes exemplify McAlpine's approach to stress-free entertaining. The zuccotto's make-ahead nature is a boon for any busy host, while the jelly's setting time demands advance planning. She advises against stirring the jelly mixture once it is on the heat to preserve the prosecco's bubbles for a lighter texture. For the zuccotto, she emphasises using a very low heat when melting the chocolate to prevent it from burning.
These recipes are edited extracts from Skye McAlpine's latest book, 'The Christmas Companion: Recipes, Crafts and Inspiration for a Magical Festive Season', published by Bloomsbury at £28. They offer a modern, stylish, and utterly delicious alternative to the more labour-intensive traditional Christmas pudding, ensuring the finale to any festive meal is both impressive and manageable.
