Planning to celebrate Christmas in a grand style this year in the United Kingdom and the entire British Isles? If yes, then you cannot say you did it without these classic traditional British Christmas recipes that I will be sharing with you below. Christmas is all about love, sharing and caring. The earlier you prepare what you plan to cook and share with friends and relatives, the better for you. There won’t be nothing as good as trying out traditional British Christmas recipes. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1. Christmas Pudding

Plum pudding as it is called at times is made up of dried fruits that are held together using egg and suet. You can also moisten it with treacle or molasses and use cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or ginger as flavor. Other spices could also be used. Christmas pudding is one of the traditional British Christmas recipes that is served for Christmas dinner in UK, Ireland and some other countries where you will find British emigrants. Plum pudding can stay for more than a month since the alcohol content in it prevents it from getting bad.

2. Roast Turkey and trimmings

Turkey is one of the most popular Christmas dish in the UK. Many people buy turkey, garnish it with spices and roast whole in an oven. Some use it sliced and served as sandwich or cold cuts. UK alone consumed 7,734,000 turkeys on Christmas Day in 2009.

3. Roast potatoes

The crispy roast potatoes is one of the dishes served as Christmas dinner in the British Isles. Potatoes are peeled and cut in halves or quarters of about same size and boiled for about two minutes. It is then put into a hot baking tray coated with fat like sunflower oil or goose/duck fat where it will roast for an hour. You can roast with parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Serve immediately when it is ready. 

4. Brandy butter

Brandy butter is a sweet dessert sauce made by beating or creaming butter and sugar with brandy and other flavorings. It is usually served with gingerbread, plum pudding, Indian pudding or any other heavy pudding. It is called Hard sauce and can also be made with rum as rum butter and sherry as sherry butter. Brandy butter and rum butter are traditional British Christmas recipes. It is also known as the Senior Wrangler sauce in Cambridge.

5. Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington is a traditional British Christmas recipe that is made with wrapped (wrapped with puff pastry) fillet steak coated with pâté de foie gras and duxelles and baked. The origin of the name of this famous Christmas recipe is not really know but may have some connection to the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley. It is however a great dish to add to your Christmas party.

6. Devils on horseback

This traditional British Christmas recipe is made with pitted dates, cubed Asiago cheese and crosswise sliced bacon. It is called Devils on Horseback because of the dates used are black contrary to Angels on Horseback where apricots are used. The name may have come about because of the bacon that sits on the dates, just like someone sitting on a horse. Many love it because it is an ideal appetiser that could be used for entertaining guests. What a great addition to your Christmas dinner.

7. Pigs in a blanket

Ever wonder where the names of these traditional British Christmas recipes come from? Just imagine a pig covered with a blanket. Pigs in blanket refers to chipolatas (small sausages) that are wrapped in bacon. In the UK and Ireland, they are usually used as traditional accompaniment in a Christmas dinner to roast turkey.

8. Stuffing

Also called filling, consists of a mixture of pieces of bread that have been cut to fill a cavity of other food item before cooking. Chicken and turkey are commonly used and stuffed with onion, pepper, celery salt, other herbs, spices and mix flavors. In the United Kingdom, they may add dried fruits, chestnuts and other nuts like flaked almonds and apricots.

9. Twelfth Night Cake

And if you were thinking of baking some cake for Christmas, then the Twelfth Night Cake should come to your mind. The crumbly fruit cake with its classic design and rich icing is one of the traditional British Christmas recipes that has been in existence since the days of the British Georgian ancestors. They used Twelfth Night cakes to celebrate the last day of the festive season. This was usually done around January 5^th.

10. Tunis cake

You can also go for Tunis cake which is actually a Madeira cake that has been topped with layers of chocolate and marzipan fruits used as decorations. It is an Edwardian cake and is traditionally eaten during Christmas. However, the earlier recipe did not include the chocolate and marzipan.

How did you find our 10 traditional British Christmas recipes to go for this Christmas? You are free to add more recipes in the comment section. Don’t forget to checkout these vegetarian recipes for Christmas if you are a vegetarian. Have a wonderful Christmas holiday as you share and care with family, friends and the needy. Don’t forget to subscribe for more updates.