Festive fancies: Britain’s bakers unveil Christmas themed NPD

Bakers have embraced the most wonderful time of year with a dazzling array of festive NPD.

Here we offer a taste of the Christmas creations from businesses ranging in size from national bakery brands to boutique independent delis.

And when you’ve sampled these seasonal treats, take a look at our in-depth analysis of the trends, formats and flavours shaping the Christmas bakery market in 2026.

Birley Bakery Christmas crackers

Joining Birley Bakery’s festive menu for the first time this year are boxes of Christmas crackers (£35). Designed exclusively for the bakery, each cracker includes a gold paper crown, a classic festive joke, and a selection of 67% dark‑chocolate mini Christmas tree treats. Birley will also be offering festive staples such as mince pies, chocolate stocking fillers, hampers, panettone, and Yule logs with a tropical twist.

Biscoff biscuits

Biscoff is adding a new twist to its line-up with its original and chocolate-coated biscuits in reindeer, snowmen and Santa shapes. The Christmas biscuits will be available in multipack formats containing eight original twin-packs or four chocolate twin-packs featuring a bespoke Christmas design.

Cake Box slices

Egg-free specialist Cake Box has a new range of festive slices, priced from £4.50. This includes a further adaptation of its popular Dubai Chocolate range, first debuted in April 2025. The new Dubai Chocolate Christmas Slice comprises chocolate sponge layered with pistachio cream and suter pheni, finished with chopped pistachios and Christmas tree piping.

Other festive slice variants include Christmas Red Velvet (red velvet sponge layered with fresh cream and cream cheese frosting, finished with strawberries), Christmas Sprinkles (Victoria sponge covered in colourful sprinkles with green piping and chocolate decorations), and Christmas Tree Chocolate (Chocolate sponge with chocolate filling, chocolate sprinkles and a piped Christmas tree).

The business is also launching a range of £4.50 festive cheesecake sundaes with reindeer, Christmas tree, or snowman decorations.

Country Choice festive range

Country Choice has unveiled its 2026 Christmas range including:

• Mini Iced Christmas Fruit Cake – made with vine fruits, glacé cherries, and festive spices, hand topped with icing and an edible holly leaf.
• Gingerbread Muffin – with a ginger sauce centre and a gingerbread man decoration.
• Christmas Pudding Cupcake – chocolate flavour sponge cake topped with chocolate flavoured fondant with a drizzle of white icing and an edible holly decoration.
• Caramelised Onion & Camembert Lattice – combining camembert with caramelised red onion chutney in a golden puff pastry lattice.
• Christmas Dinner Wrap – a bake-in-pack product made with cooked Cumberland sausages, chicken breast, smoked streaky bacon, sage and onion gravy stuffing and cranberry sauce in a wheat flour tortilla.
• Brie & Cranberry Toastie – white bloomer bread filled with cranberry and white sauce with mature Cheddar cheese and sliced Brie, topped with a white sauce, dried cranberries and Cheddar and mozzarella cheese.

Fiona Cairns Christmas collection

Leicestershire-based Fiona Cairns, creator of the royal wedding cake for the Prince and Princess of Wales, has unveiled its 2026 Christmas collection. The range includes:

• 7” Iced Christmas Holly Fruitcake – brandy-infused fruitcake spiced with the Fiona Cairns’ Signature Spice Blend, packed with vine fruits and decorated with handmade holly leaves and berries
• 4” Christmas Gift Fruitcake – decorated with handmade snowflakes and holly leaves with berries
• 2.5” Mini Holly Topped Iced Fruitcake – with top layers of marzipan and white icing, this mini fruitcake is hand decorated with a handmade holly and berry leaf and a Christmas star
• Christmas Wreath Fairy Cakes – six-pack of golden sponge fairy cupcakes hand-decorated with holly leaves, snowflakes and red-bowed Christmas wreaths
• Mini Buttercream Christmas Cupcakes – a nine-pack of chocolate sponge mini cupcakes topped with hand-piped buttercream and finished with a snowflake, gingerbread man or trio of holly leaves
• Individual Christmas Gingerbread Lollipops – iced with decorative details including Father Christmas, a snowy penguin and a gingerbread man.

Pidy festive recipe booklet

Pidy has produced a free booklet, Bring Magic to Your Plate, centred around its range of Christmas-themed products.

The booklet offers six seasonal recipes and ideas for utilising products such as Pidy’s Christmas Tree and Star Puff Pastry Shells that can be used with fillings including classic turkey and trimmings or Japanese-style dill cream topped with salmon tartar.

McLaren’s gluten-free Christmas pudding

Matured in brandy for six months, McLaren’s Christmas Pudding’s first gluten-free line is made with premium-grade fruits and British butter, and contains no suet. The 450g pudding serves four people and is priced £20.

“Christmas pudding is all about tradition, and for most people it’s something they only eat once a year – so creating a gluten-free version that still tastes like a really exceptional Christmas pudding was incredibly important,” said Duncan McLaren, whose mother Sandra founded the brand in 2004.

McVitie’s chocolate treats

Leading this year’s sweet seasonal range for McVitie’s is the Jaffa Elf Milk Chocolate Treat and Christmas Penguin Milk Chocolate Treat (rsp: £1 each, 29g).

Jaffa Elf has a tangy orangey centre, biscuit pieces and an elf shape, while Penguin combines milk chocolate, chocolatey cream filling and crunchy Penguin biscuit pieces.

“Jaffa Elf and Penguin Milk Chocolate Treats offer shoppers a playful alternative to the category’s traditional Santas and reindeers, bringing fresh personalities to seasonal confectionery,” says Emma Johnson, brand manager seasonal at Pladis UK&I.

Mr Kipling festive sweet bites

Mr Kipling has unveiled four seasonal launches and a new four-pack format for the festive season, including Chocolate & Gingerbread and White Chocolate & Hazelnut Flavour Festive Novelty Tarts (rsp: £2.50).

The Premier Foods-owned brand is also expanding its festive range with two limited-edition Cake Bites tubs, Gingerbread Cake Bites and Christmassy Cake Bites (rsp: £3.90). Completing the brand’s line-up is the return of Mr Kipling Mince Pie Whirls, back in a new four-pack format (rsp: £1.80).

Nicolas Rouzaud Yule Logs

London-based pâtissier Nicolas Rouzaud is celebrating the French heritage of the Yule log, and has been inspired by the first published recipe of French pâtissier Pierre Lacam in 1895.

Nicolas Rouzaud at The Connaught will offer ten Yule Logs each day between 21 and 25 December for the discounted price of £18.95. Shoppers will be able to choose from two creations – the Chocolate & Hazelnut log and the Vanilla & Red Berries log. A percentage of proceeds from the sale of the Yule Logs will be donated to homeless charity The Passage.

The Toll House Deli Basque cheesecake

The Toll House Deli in Chelsea, London, has launched a handcrafted Basque cheesecake collection that blends indulgent flavours, elegant presentation and small-batch baking.

Available individually, as mixed flavour boxes, or in full-sized celebration format, the range includes Classic Basque, Pistachio Luxe, Chocolate Decadence, Lotus Biscoff Crunch and Berry Compote. Unlike traditional New York cheesecake, Basque cheesecake has a deeply caramelised top, lighter texture and custard-like centre.

Walker’s Shortbread

Walker’s Shortbread’s festive NPD includes Mini Chocolate Shortbread Parcels that feature all-butter chocolate shortbread dotted with dark chocolate chips (rsp £2.25/100g) and Mini Festive Shortbread Shapes that are presented in a decorated festive tin (rsp: £5, 100g).

The bakery has also developed the Shortbread Petticoat Tails tin containing crumbly all-butter shortbread triangles (rsp: £13.50, 300g).