Homemade Foodie Gifts
December, for many of us around the world, is a time for family, festivities and food. And the giving of presents! What could be better than to combine two of these into one and give edible gifts?
We'd love to hear your ideas for great home-made foodie gifts and also your stories about foodie gifts you've received and enjoyed. If you have thoughts on packaging and presentation let's hear about those too.
Add your thoughts here and visit the main site to see some suggestions for recipes you may want to make and give yourself. Edited by: Kavey F at: 11/25/03 11:41 pm
Hi
I just found your site and I'm enjoying looking at all the recipes. Thanks.
I made some chocolate truffles once which I gave as christmas presents once. Everyone said they liked them though maybe they were bring polite. They were quite easy to make.
I doubt everyone was being polite - I can't imagine not being delighted to receive home made chocolates!
Actually you reminded me, when we were little my sister and I made things like peppermint creams, coconut ices and marzipan fruits that were sometimes given as presents (if we didn't eat them all first!).
miscellaneous food gifts
One of the easiest food gifts to make, which is also very well received, is a fruity chocolate candy that just seems especially appropriate in the late fall and winter. I made up the recipe. In the microwave I soften some good quality semi-sweet chocolate chips (or sometimes I use about 2/3 semi-sweet:1/3 milk chocolate Belgian chocolate chips). Then I stir it quickly while it's warm to get rid of all the lumps and make it smooth, and while stirring, I add a few drops of pure oil of orange peel (available in Boyajian brand where I live) and some ground cinnamon and ground cardamon to taste. Then I stir in some dried sweetened cranberries--a lot or a little depending on how fruity I want it to be and what I think the recipient might like. With a spoon, I take little portions and drop them on a flat surface and put them somewhere to cool and harden.
One year, two months after I'd been on a hiking tour in Tuscany, I decided to make panforte as Christmas gifts. From tasting it in Siena and reading the ingredient labels on the packaged panforte, I understood what the ingredients and flavors were, but had no idea how to make it. I searched several sources and found diverse recipes. From those, i picked out the elements that I tought might best reproduce the flavors of the ones I'd liked best. I bought all the best ingredients I could find, epeople there's no point making this things with ingredients that are not so good. so I found good almonds, hazelnuts, the best candied orange and lemon rinds and citron, in addition to various spices I already had on hand. I failed at finding the thin wafer that is traditionally used as a base for the sticky confection so it can be handled, and used parchment instead, since it can serve the same purpose but just isn't edible. (I felt too embarrassed to go to a religious supplies store to ask to buy unblessed communion, which probably would've ben perfect as the wafer base.) The panforte turned out to be delicious, but I made only a few. It was absolutely incredibly expensive to make, so I really don't recommend making this, unless you live someplace where you have an inexpensive source for very high quality candied citrus peels.
I have an overproductive pear tree that produces enormous quantities of pears, except during the yearrs when it produces none. They are very delicious, juicy, but usually damaged and a little wormy pears that require a lot of careful cleaning to get rid ofthe inhabitants. I've made pear butter from it, as a way of using up an overhwelming quantity of these frutis that were quickly rotting in paper bags on my kitchen floor. If only early fall were a major gift-giving time of year, that would make a nice gift.
Generally, my cooking is not of sweets and condiments, so most of what I routintely make doesn't really lend itself to gift giving. However, since I don't give holiday gifts regularly anyway, and I do like to give gifts at odd times for no particular reason, sometimes I give gifts of regular food that I know people like. I have some elderly friends in my town who love certain dishes that i make, e.g., Sicilian eggplant caponata, or a lamb stew, or summery cold zucchini with lemon and mint. Sometimes I make a batch of the food they like and package them as a surprise gift.
Re: miscellaneous food gifts
Hi Carol
Thanks for posting. That all sounds really wonderful. It's true that I hadn't thought about the fact that many people aren't as keen on sweet things as I am and that they're more interested in savoury.
Do you have a recipe for your fruity chocolate candy that you'd like us to put on the site (with your name as author, of course)? Would be nice to share it and add it to the links provided on the home page of the main website?
Thanks
Kavey
Re: miscellaneous food gifts
You can use the recipe I posted, or the version I posted on another site. Unfortunately, I am not very precise re quantities, but really there are no set amounts. Just be careful not to pour in too much orange peel oil because it is very concentrated and intense. As for the clocolate chips, try to use good ones, if possibile, but some ordinary American supermarket brands (e.g., Nestles) work well and taste fine when doctored up with all these flavors. DO NOT USE HERSHEY's; it does not work well at all and seems to burn up when melted.
Re: Chocolates
Yum, Carol -- they sound delicious! Matma, thank you for the recipies on your site -- I really want to try one for presents this year -- they would be something special!
Here is a very easy recipe for banana nut bread, that I've used since I was a kid. You can wrap them up in foil for a sweet (but not too sweet) present:
"Aunt Luella's Banana Nut Bread:"
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nutmeats (optional -- walnuts are good)
1. Cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs and beat together.
2. Mash bananas and add lemon juice. Blend with above mixture.
3. Blend flour, baking powder and salt into banana mixture. Add nuts.
4. Bake in greased loaf pan in moderate oven (375 F) for about 1 and a quarter hours. Makes a one pound loaf. Or bake two loaves in smaller bread pans at lower temperature and less time -- about 350 degrees F. for one hour.
Banana bread
Hi Carla
Can you please send me this recipe via the link Mamta Gupta at the bottom of the home page? Discussion board moves on, I will forget to try it. I am still in India and will not get a chance to test it until I get back. Thanks
Mamta
Re: miscellaneous food gifts
I found this thread by clicking on a link to "recent posts" of mine in my profile. Maybe this means your forum is not completely destroyed, and the threads can be found, even though it looks empty when we go to the forum home page.
If all the people who read this can find some "recent posts" from Mamta's Kitchen in their profile and can just post something, anything, on them, maybe at least those particular threads can return from the dead.
at: 6/4/05 1:21 am
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