The traditional British Christmas dessert made with dried fruits and often flambéed is Christmas pudding.
Christmas pudding is a dense, dark steamed or boiled pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain. Typical ingredients include dried fruit, breadcrumbs or flour, sugar, spices, citrus peel, and suet; many recipes also use brandy or another alcoholic drink. It is commonly reheated before serving and may be topped with warm brandy that is set alight.
Its history reaches back to medieval English puddings, some of which combined sweet ingredients with meat. Over time, dried fruit, sugar, and spices became more prominent. The name “Christmas pudding” was used by Eliza Acton in her 1845 cookbook, while the dessert’s association with Victorian Christmas was reinforced by popular culture, including Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
It is also called plum pudding, but “plum” historically meant raisins or other dried fruit, not fresh plums. Panettone is an Italian sweet bread, fruitcake is a broader category, and a Yule log is a cake modeled on a log.