A Calendar You Can Eat: Nottingham's Nutty Advent Countdown for 2026

There is a particular kind of December joy in opening a cardboard door, finding a smear of chocolate the size of a fingernail, and pretending it counts as breakfast. This year, we'd like to propose something better. Twenty-four days, twenty-four actual bakes, and a box on the kitchen counter that gets noticeably tastier as the month goes on.

Below is a full advent plan for December 2026 — one nutty bake or sweet treat per day, mapped to shops, market stalls and a few honest shortcuts. It isn't a ranking, and nothing here has been scored out of ten. Think of it as a shopping list with a bit of theatre attached.

First, the rules of the game

You need a container. A sturdy shoe box, a butcher's tray, a cake tin with the lid off, a wired basket from a charity shop — all fine. Line the base with greaseproof paper and number the slots with sticky labels or a Sharpie. Twenty-four little parcels, and you're away.

On budget: set aside roughly £3–£5 per door and let the supermarket shortcuts balance out the bakery splurges. That works out around £80–£95 for the whole month if you're disciplined, or £120 if you wander into a chocolatier at 4pm on a Saturday, which is what usually happens to us.

One important note before we start: chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts and the rest are proper allergens. If anyone in the house has a nut allergy, the swaps at the bottom matter more than the rest of this article. Don't assume a switch is safe — ask the counter about shared trays and shared tongs.

Doors 1 to 6: ease yourself in

1 December — almond croissant. West Bridgford and Sherwood both have bakeries doing a properly squidgy one under a snowdrift of flaked almonds. £2.80–£3.50. Eat it warm, over the sink, before anyone sees.

2 December — roasted chestnuts. The Old Market Square stalls are back for the run-up to Christmas, and a paper bag of these costs about £3–£4. Burn your thumb, swear, feel festive. Genuine Nottingham December behaviour.

3 December — pistachio cruffin. The Hockley bakeries have been leaning hard into pistachio cream this year. Around £4.25. Messy in the best way, so don't wear anything pale.

4 December — hazelnut praline truffle. One single truffle, from a chocolatier in the Sneinton Market Avenues. Roughly £1.80–£2.50 each. Buy two, put one in the box, eat the other on the walk to the car.

5 December — walnut and coffee cake. A slice from a Mapperley Top café, £3.50 or so. The coffee cuts the sweetness, which is the sort of reasoning we're happy to deploy in December.

6 December — stollen bites. Supermarket shortcut day. Lidl and Aldi both do marzipan-filled stollen bites for £2–£3, and the M&S version is a bit pricier but noticeably better. Marzipan counts as a nut product — see the swap column.

Doors 7 to 12: market momentum

7 December — baklava. The delis along Mansfield Road will sell you a single piece for about £1.50. Pistachio, honey, filo. Doesn't travel well, so this is a same-day door.

8 December — peanut butter blondie. Sneinton Market on a Saturday is where this one lives. £3ish a square, and they freeze beautifully if you're building the calendar in advance.

9 December — battenberg. Not glamorous, but the almond paste corners are exactly the sort of thing you want on a grey Tuesday. £1.75 from most supermarket bakeries.

10 December — pecan pie slice. Beeston has a bakery counter doing a decent one at £3.75. Ask them to box it flat or you'll be scraping caramel off a rucksack.

11 December — chestnut and honey tartlet. Make-at-home door. Vacuum-packed chestnuts (£2), a sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry, honey, a splash of cream. Twenty-five minutes, and it makes four, so you've got a spare for the freezer.

12 December — hazelnut gelato. Yes, in December. A couple of the city gelaterias keep it on through winter, £3.50 for a small tub. It's a good palate reset two-thirds of the way through a very rich month.

Doors 13 to 18: the showstoppers

13 December — praline éclair. £4–£4.50 from a proper patisserie. Keep it upright. That's the whole advice.

14 December — florentines. Homemade, and honestly easier than they look: flaked almonds, glacé cherries, butter, sugar, a chocolate base if you're feeling generous. About 20 minutes plus cooling, and the whole batch costs under £4.

15 December — macarons. A box of six from a Nottingham patisserie will set you back £9–£11. Almond-based, so no good for a nut-free house, but a lovely door to look at.

16 December — cobnut brittle. Cobnuts are a proper British nut and they make an excellent brittle. Some delis stock it around £4; otherwise it's sugar, butter and nuts in a pan, and you'll feel unbearably smug.

17 December — chocolate hazelnut tart slice. Most good bakeries have one in the case in December. £3.80ish. Hazelnut spread is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and we are not complaining.

18 December — peanut brittle. Bulwell Market. A bag for £2.50, and it keeps for weeks in a tin, so buy early and ration badly.

Doors 19 to 24: the home stretch

19 December — nutty flapjack. £2 from practically anywhere, and the oats make it feel almost wholesome at this point in the month.

20 December — stollen slice. A Carlton bakery will do you a thick one for £3. Better than the supermarket bites, and by now you deserve the upgrade.

21 December — walnut brownie. £3.50. Warm it for 15 seconds. That's it, that's the tip.

22 December — coconut macaroon. The nut-free hero of the calendar. Two ingredients, cheap as anything, and it gives the box a bit of texture variety when everything else is caramel.

23 December — marzipan fruits. £4–£6 for a small box, or make your own with a block of marzipan and some food colouring if you've got a spare hour and low standards.

24 December — a whole praline tart to share. £12–£15 from a decent bakery, and the only door you don't eat alone. Slice it after supper on Christmas Eve, with something cold and fizzy.

Building a nut-free version that doesn't feel like a punishment

Swap the marzipan doors for coconut macaroons, the praline for a salted caramel truffle, the baklava for a honey-and-sesame pastry (check the seeds are handled separately), and the almond croissant for a cinnamon swirl. Toasted oats, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seed butter will carry a lot of the texture work.

The catch: cross-contact is real. A bakery that makes almond croissants and nut-free bakes on the same bench isn't automatically safe. Ask directly, and if the answer is vague, don't risk it.

A note on storing the thing

Anything with fresh cream goes in the fridge and gets eaten within a day. Everything else lives in a cool cupboard, wrapped in greaseproof, away from the radiator. Label the doors with allergens if you're sharing — it takes ninety seconds and saves an awkward conversation on the 14th.

Twenty-four days. Twenty-four bakes. Some of them will be extraordinary, a couple will be a bit dry, and one of them will be eaten in the car outside the shop before it ever reaches the box. That's the calendar working exactly as intended.