Nigella Lawson makes a wonderful Italian Christmas pudding on Nigellissima for the festive season.

Nigella’s recipe uses a panettone as the base of the Christmas pudding.

A panettone is a type of sweet bread loaf originally from Milan that is usually prepared and enjoyed at Christmas and New Year in Italy.

Using panettone makes the cake very easy to make because it doesn’t require baking in an oven, just the assembly of the various layers of component ingredients.

A key component of the dish is the luscious filling. To make this, Nigella whisk eggs and sugar until very frothy and increased in volume and lightness.

She then slowly whisked in mascarpone and double cream, then gradually whisked in marsala and carry on whisking until the mixture was thick and spreadable.

To finish, she crumbles marrons glacés into the mascarpone cream mixture, followed by 100g of the chocolate chips and 75g of the chopped pistachios, and fold in.