Need a showstopping Christmas dessert? We got you!

By: Natasha Archary 

The festive season is upon us and many of you will be planning your Christmas lunch or dinner menu this week.

If you need a showstopping dessert, look no further, because we’ve compiled a list of classic South African desserts to complete your Christmas lunch or dinner menu.

Classic Trifle

You can never go wrong with a trifle. Layers of texture and sweetness that turn into magic in your mouth.

The basic trifle consists of Swiss roll cake slices, layered between mounds of whipped cream, custard, and fruit.

Store bought Swiss roll takes the trouble out of an additional step, so it’s just an assembly job to get the trifle set up in a pretty serving dish so you can see all the layers. A definite showstopper on the dessert table.

Peppermint Caramel Tart

No Christmas dessert tabel is complete without a tad of peppermint chocolate, and caramel tart.

Heavy on the decadent side, this is a firm South African favourite, that’s as easy to put together as it is to devour within minutes. Coconut biscuits form the crunchy layer between caramel treat and whipped cream and shards of peppermint crisp chocolate.

Alternate between biscuit, whipped caramel and chocolate until it fits the dish you’ve chosen.

Classic cheesecake

While not traditionally South African, a classic fridge cheesecake makes the list of top 5 desserts to include on your Christmas menu.

Flavoured and sweetened cream cheese gets smothered over the biscuit base and popped back in the fridge to set. You can top with fresh fruit of your choice or a fruit sauce. Yum.

Lemon Meringue

Soft billowy, toasty meringue tops sweet lemon curd that’s sat atop a crumbly pie crust.

A slightly more technical dessert as you need to tackle making the lemon curd, assembling each step and blowtorching the meringue topping. But, here’s a hint, not everything on your Christmas menu needs to be homemade.

But if you are that person and want to give this one of a kind dessert a go, right down to juicing 20 lemons to get 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, you go for it.

Malva Pudding

As simple as mixing a few ingredients into a basic cake batter, with the addition of bicarb and apricot jam. Malva pudding is only complete with the brown sugar, cream sauce that gets drizzled all over the dense, spongy, warm cake.

South African’s also serve this classic with custard, ice-cream or fresh cream. However you prefer to serve your homemade, authentic South African dessert, rest assured it will be received well by sweet-toothed guests.

Also read: 4 things to consider before getting the kids a pet for Christmas