Impress your guests on Christmas Day with this show-stopping Christmas Ice Cream Pudding! Just 10 minutes hands-on prep, you won’t believe how easy it is to make. Use our traditional Christmas pudding ingredients or customise with your own flavour combinations!

Why We Love This

This epic Christmas dessert is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser! Full of the flavours of Christmas, it looks incredible on the Christmas table but is SO easy to make.

Ice cream pudding is a great alternative to a traditional Christmas pudding, especially for our hot summer Christmas Days in Australia!

You can easily adapt the base recipe to suit your tastes and budget, with endless flavour combinations and gourmet upgrades (read on for more amazing ideas!).

What is Ice Cream Christmas Pudding?

Ice Cream Pudding is a popular Christmas dessert in Australia. Since our Christmas Days are so hot and steamy, we love cooling desserts like trifle, pavlova, jelly slice, or chocolate ripple cake as a sweet finish to the big Christmas feast!

Pudding ice cream has a similar flavour to a traditional Christmas pudding or Christmas cake, but is made with a base of ice cream instead of boiled or steamed cake.

P.S. If you love pudding flavours, try Laura’s Dad’s favourite treat – Chester Squares (Irish Gur Cake)!

Where We Learned This

This recipe comes from Sarah’s Mum from back in the 80’s! We love nothing more than reviving retro classics, and this dessert does not disappoint! Other nostalgic favourites of ours include coffee scroll biscuits and spinach cob loaf!

Wandercook’s Tips

• Plan Ahead – This recipe is best made at least 1 day before serving so it has plenty of time to set overnight.
• Don’t Let the Ice Cream Melt – It should soften just enough to be easy to mix in the pudding ingredients, but avoid letting it completely melt as this will change the texture of the finished pudding.
• Line Your Bowl – This makes it much easier to take the frozen ice cream pudding out of the container when you’re ready to serve. Instead of plastic wrap, we use aluminium foil which works just as well but is also easier to recycle.
• Turn Out the Pudding – Wrap a damp towel over the foil for a few seconds to help peel it off, if required. You can smooth out any wrinkles in the ice cream with the flat of a knife or frosting spatula if you like, but we think they actually add to the look!
• Melted Chocolate – Be careful pouring melted chocolate over the top of frozen ice cream pudding, as it can cause the ice cream to melt quickly.
• Storage – Always store in an airtight container in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. If it’s difficult to slice, pop it in the fridge for 15 minutes to soften slightly.

FAQs

Variations

• Traditional Flavour – Serve with custard for a traditional Christmas pudding flavour.
• Gourmet Upgrade Ideas – Make your own upgraded flavour combinations like cranberry and white chocolate or raspberry, orange rind and pistachio. Top the pudding with premium fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and mint. Add a splash of rose water or orange blossom water. Drizzle with honey.
• Neapolitan – Make it with layers of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, just like a birthday ice cream cake. Bonus points if you garnish with 100s and 1000s / sprinkles.
• Sweet Tooth – Swap the nuts for your favourite combination of crushed chocolates or lollies, homemade cookie butter, choc buttons, marshmallows, honeycomb, cookies / biscuits etc.

More amazing Australian Christmas dessert ideas:

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