Christmas Drinks, Desserts, Sweets

If you’re on a special diet and have trouble finding festive foods that work for you, or just want to try something different, maybe healthier, here are some ideas that may help. Most of these recipes are suitable for Paleo, gluten free, GAPS or SCD (starch free) or grain free diets. Some are suitable for dairy free, vegetarian or vegan diets. Most are low sugar. If you’re doing Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) even some of these recipes might not work for you, but check out The Paleo Mom’s Holiday Recipe summary. Note that not all of these recipes have been tested by us.

We believe that “special” food should taste good, so family members not on special diets might not even notice they’re different. Make sure you test the recipe before Xmas Day, so you can tweak to suit your own tastes.

Sweet Treats & Nibbles

Deb’s Xmas cake – can be made gluten free, starch free, egg free, dairy free and suggestions for alterations or alternatives for other diets
Or this Xmas cake is GF, GAPS, Paleo, Raw, vegan
Xmas mince pies – in NZ, Commonsense Organics are making their own in store, which are vegan and GF.
Scroll down for the recipe for Faye’s homemade mince pies, with GF option
Or these homemade ones are GF, GAPS, Paleo, Raw, vegan. They do use commercial mincemeat though, so you might want to make your own eg. from this recipe (which is uncannily similar to the first step in my Xmas cake recipe above.
See our Bliss Filled Bites page for a variety of mouth sized treats, including White Christmas Slice, Chocolate Xmas Bark, Chocolate Fudge, Choc Peppermint Fudge – including keto and vegan options
Nadia Lim’s avocado chocolate truffles – lower sugar, gluten & dairy free, vegan
Gingerbread men or cookies made with almond flour
Quick gingerbread cookies – Can be made keto or low sugar. Recipe from Low Carb Haven. Mix together ingredients below. The mix will be a bit sticky. Use a small scoop to spoon mounds onto a lined baking tray. Cook at 275C for 10-15 mins, watching them carefully towards the end. Leave to cool on tray.
- 1 Cup Forty Thieves Gingerbread Cookie peanut butter – also available from Low Carb Haven
- 1/3 cup granulated sweetener of choice – LCH used Natvia
- Slosh of vanilla essence
- 2 eggs
Laura from Low Carb Haven also uses the Forty Thieves Gingerbread Cookie peanut butter to make peanut butter fudge for a special Christmas treat – watch the FB reel here. Or see a similar recipe using Cinnamon Donut peanut butter here. The quantities of everything are the same. The Gingerbread nut butter is a limited edition around Xmas, but you could make the same recipe with any of their flavoured nut butters, or use a plain one and add your own spices, or keep it spice free.
Or see Laura’s low carb Rocky Road.
Almond flour Xmas star cookies
Some keto Xmas cookies from Hungry For Inspiration: Keto Pecan Snowball Cookies and scroll down the page for links to other Xmas cookies
Festive Gummies

Faye’s Christmas Mince Tarts

125 gm softened butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup flour (I use Edmonds plain Gluten Free for GF option)
Prepared fruit mince

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until they come together in a ball. If GF option remains crumbly just add a small dash of cream to help bind it. Press walnut sized balls into small greased patty tins. Shape to fit tin. Retain a portion to press out for stars on the top. Add fruit mince filling; do not overfill. Finger press or roll out remaining pastry. Cut stars or rounds for the top of the tarts. Place on tarts. Bake 35-40 min @150 degrees C. May take a little longer depending on oven. Makes approximately 15 small tarts. This recipe works with any tart filling. Nice with lemon honey.

(un)Decadent Desserts

A fresh fruit platter or rainbow kebabs or fruit Xmas tree or this other fruit Xmas tree or Watermelon cake
Jelly trifle
For a decadent looking but whole food dessert, check out these two chocolate cheesecake / mousse recipes
Our family has always loved brandy snaps. We had someone in our neighbourhood who made them (see my memoir about them here). They were delicate, perfectly formed morsels that I loved sitting in her kitchen watching her make, before taking home mum’s order. Commercial ones are such a disappointment – thick and too hard. If you want to make your own, here is the Edmonds Cookbook recipe, and the Chelsea Sugar recipe. One thing I would do differently is form them into squares rather than rounds before cooking, they look much prettier that way. If you are gluten free or keto, here is a recipe from Low Carb Haven. Due to the difficulty in making them without flour, these are in the form of baskets.
If you’re keto, there are plenty of options using lakanto or erythritol. This Keto sugar cream pie sounds like a great Xmas treat. (scroll all the way down to the printable version for full ingredient list)
And if you can’t go past pav, here’s a keto, sugar-free pavlova recipe
This Mommypotamus page – Ultimate GAPS Holiday recipes – has a bunch of yummy looking dessert and sweet snack ideas
See our Luscious Desserts page for loads more options

Drinks

For kids / non-drinkers:

At many Kiwi Christmas dinners, the choices for a non alcoholic drink will be soft drinks and fruit juice. Maybe a low alcohol beer. What are some other options?

Egg nog – sugar free, alcohol free, dairy free version. (Until fairly recently, I never knew egg nog was full of sugar and alcohol. When we were little, an egg nog was a whisked up mixture of warm milk, honey and raw eggs, that Mum gave to us when we were sick. And that would be another alcohol free recipe…)
For a lower sugar fizzy option – Punch made from:
- organic fruit juice or coconut water
- plus sparkling water or kombucha (instead of lemonade)
26 best mocktails

For the adults:

If you’re not gluten free, a beer or a shandy will be a popular choice, but there are others.

Cider – there are loads to try
Preservative free red wine
Sangria – there is apparently no standard recipe for it, but here’s one to give you some ideas
Back in the day, my family were not drinkers. But at Xmas, Grandma, Mum and my aunts would break out the bottle of Blackberry Nip, and have a small splash in a glass of lemonade. Amazingly, you can still get it. Or a beautiful raspberry Liqueur is Chambord. Sip it as is, or top up with your favourite mixer.
If you fancy a cocktail but don’t know how to make one, here’s a guide to the top 24 cocktails

Christmas Drinks, Desserts, Sweets