Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise has splashed out on extravagant festive gifts for the hard-working crew of his upcoming seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Cruise reportedly used his private plane to deliver 300 Christmas cakes from his favourite Los Angeles bakery to the crew nearly 9000 kilometres away in Britain.

“He organised for the shop to make 300 cakes especially and they were then flown back to the UK on his jet,” a source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper.

“It is extravagant, but Tom is an incredibly generous person and he wanted to do something special for everyone who has worked on the movie with him.”

Cruise is apparently so partial the Doan’s Bakery’s white chocolate coconut bundt cake that it has become known as the “Tom Cruise cake”. He regularly sends the $US99 ($139) sweet treat to friends and colleagues – with Yahoo reporting that other recipients in the past 10 years have included Jimmy Fallon, Kirsten Dunst, Henry Cavill and Barbara Walters.

Cruise famously doesn’t eat sugar because it gets in the way of training for his high-risk movie stunts. But he told Yahoo in 2018: “I send [cakes] to everyone… and I wait for the calls [about how good they are]. I’m like: Tell me about it.”

Doan’s is also a favourite with other Hollywood A-listers. Gourmet food shipping company Goldbelly says the “Tom Cruise cake” is a diet-buster.

“They start with a ring of moist, luxurious coconut bundt cake, mix in chunks of sweet white chocolate, layer on rich cream cheese frosting, and then dust it all over with toasted coconut flakes,” it said.

“The result is a delicious, pillowy cake good enough to derail the strictest Hollywood diets.”

The gifts were certainly a change of pace for Cruise, who last year hit the headlines accused of rather less generous treatment of his film crews.

Late in 2020, he was caught on audio in an astonishing expletive-laden rant at crew of the set of Mission: Impossible 7 after apparent breaches in coronavirus protocols on the London set.

He apparently flew into a rage at the site of a couple of crew members standing within two metres of each other.

“If I see you do it again, you’re f—ing gone. And if anyone in this crew does it, that’s it – and you too and you too. And you, don’t you ever f—ing do it again,” Cruise shouts on the leaked tape.

It prompted Leah Remini, an actress and a former Scientologist who has worked with Cruise, to release a lengthy statement accusing the star of being “an abusive person”.

Remini said she had witnessed first-hand the abuse from Cruise.

“I’ve been a recipient of it on a small level, and I’ve been told of similar abuse by his former girlfriend, his employees, and his friends,” she said.

Cruise, who is also the Mission: Impossible 7 producer, helped to develop the strict COVID protocols that allowed the film to continue production in Italy and Norway, as well as London.

The movie is one of many delayed by the pandemic. It is set for release in the US in September 2022 – more than two years after it was initially expected.