How many calories in Christmas pudding? Per portion, with custard and brandy butter

Christmas pudding arrives at the end of the biggest meal of the year, dark, dense and on fire. It feels like the heaviest thing on the table.

Per gram it is one of the lighter Christmas desserts. A Christmas pudding is about 320 kcal per 100g, so a standard 113g portion is about 362. The catch is what happens next: it is served in large slices and almost never on its own, and the custard, cream or brandy butter can add half a portion again.

The quick answer

At about 320 kcal per 100g, which is where most shop-bought and homemade puddings land.

Calories by weight

For leftovers, reheated slices and the piece cut "just to try".

Where the calories actually are

Christmas pudding is dried fruit held together with breadcrumbs, flour, suet, eggs, dark sugar and treacle, then steamed for hours. Unlike a mince pie, it has no pastry case, and that is the whole difference.

So the headline is the opposite of the mince pie. A mince pie is two thirds shortcrust pastry and sits at about 400 kcal per 100g. Christmas pudding is mostly fruit and sugar and sits at about 320. It is a sugar food first and a fat food second.

That sugar is substantial. A typical pudding is around 45g of sugar per 100g, so a 113g portion carries about 51g, more than half of the NHS reference intake of 90g of total sugars a day. Not all of it counts as free sugar, since much of it is inside the raisins, sultanas and currants, but the added sugar, treacle and candied peel do count towards the 30g free-sugar limit.

The fruit does bring something back. At about 3g of fibre per 100g, a portion of pudding has more fibre than two slices of white bread.

What goes on top

This is where Christmas pudding gets heavy. The toppings use the same figures as the mince pie breakdown.

Brandy butter is butter beaten with icing sugar and brandy, at about 560 kcal per 100g. It is also very high in saturated fat, far over the 5g per 100g threshold the NHS uses for a "high" label, because most of it is butter.

The plates people actually eat

For a 113g portion, the standard quarter or eighth.

The last row is the interesting one. A small slice with a modest pour of custard is lighter than a full portion served plain. The slice size matters more than the topping choice, and both matter more than the pudding brand.

Does flaming it burn anything off?

Setting a pudding alight is theatre, not a calorie trick. Warm brandy is poured over and lit, the flame burns off some of the alcohol, and some of it soaks in.

The numbers are tiny either way. 30ml of 40% brandy is about 67 kcal for the whole pudding. Across eight portions, that is about 8 kcal each even if not a drop burned. Flame it for the table, not for the arithmetic.

How it compares with other Christmas desserts

Typical figures, since every recipe and brand differs. Check the pack where there is one.

Per gram, only trifle is lighter than Christmas pudding. Per portion, pudding is the heaviest thing in the table before any custard goes near it, because the standard slice is bigger than any of the others. That is the whole correction in one line: it is the portion, not the pudding.

Christmas Day arithmetic

Christmas pudding comes after Christmas dinner. The roast dinner breakdown puts a full plate of turkey and trimmings at about 1,017 kcal.

The mulled wine figure (153 kcal for a 150ml cup) comes from the mulled wine breakdown. One day of this is not a problem. It is the same pattern repeated through the leftovers that adds up.

Leftovers

Boxing Day pudding is often fried in butter. A 100g slice fried in 10g of butter is about 392 kcal before any topping, so the frying adds more than most of the custard pours above.

UK and US words that trip up logging

• Pudding. In the UK, "pudding" means the dessert course in general, and Christmas pudding is a steamed fruit pudding. In the US, pudding usually means a soft, set milk dessert. A US database entry for "pudding" is a completely different food.
• Plum pudding and figgy pudding. Older names for Christmas pudding. Neither contains plums as such. "Plums" historically meant raisins and other dried fruit.
• Custard. UK pouring custard is thin and served warm, close to crème anglaise. US "custard" is often a thicker set dessert. Log the ready-made pouring custard at about 100 kcal per 100ml.
• Brandy butter. Called hard sauce in the US.
• Suet. Hard fat used in the pudding. Shop puddings usually use vegetable suet, which has the same calories per gram as beef suet.
• Treacle and mixed peel. Black treacle is close to US molasses. Mixed peel is candied citrus peel.
• Sultanas. Golden raisins in the US.

Christmas pudding mistakes to avoid

Logging "1 serving" from a database

Entries range from 75g to 150g, a twofold spread. Weigh your slice once. A quarter of a 1lb pudding is 113g, and that is the portion most families actually cut.

Logging the pudding and not the jug

Custard, cream and brandy butter are poured or spooned at the table, so they rarely get counted. On the 680 kcal plate, the toppings are almost half.

Treating it as the lighter option because there is no pastry

It is lighter per gram than a mince pie. It is not lighter per plate, because the portion is about twice the weight.

Three ways to keep the pudding and lose the excess

The small slice with custard (340 kcal)

• 75g slice of pudding (240 kcal)
• 100ml ready-made custard (100 kcal)

Adds up to: 340 kcal. Lighter than a full portion served plain, and it still feels like the full pudding.

Single cream instead of brandy butter (420 kcal)

• 113g portion (362 kcal)
• 2 tbsp single cream (58 kcal)

Adds up to: 420 kcal, 110 less than the same portion with two tablespoons of brandy butter.

Share an individual pudding (about 210 kcal each)

• One 100g individual pudding split between two (160 kcal each)
• 50ml custard each (50 kcal)

Adds up to: about 210 kcal per person. A taste of the tradition after a big lunch, which is often all anyone actually wanted.

The verdict

Christmas pudding is about 320 kcal per 100g, so a standard 113g portion is about 362. Per gram it is lighter than a mince pie, a slice of Christmas cake or a yule log, because it has no pastry and no icing. Most of its calories are sugar from dried fruit, dark sugar and treacle.

What makes it heavy is the slice and the jug. A large portion with brandy butter and custard is 680 kcal, nearly double the pudding alone.

If you change one thing, cut the slice smaller and keep the custard.

Pairs well with: the mince pie calorie breakdown, the roast dinner calorie breakdown, and the mulled wine calorie breakdown.