Say It With Food – Edible Christmas Gifts Made With Love

Homemade food is a pleasure to give as well as to receive. Whether it’s beautifully stacked biscuits wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon, or a gorgeous jar of chili jam, food presents make inexpensive and thoughtful gifts for family and friends.

So roll up your sleeves, don your apron and let your children loose in the Christmas kitchen. Cooking is a great way to encourage their culinary creativity and the following homemade treats can be eaten fresh from the oven or left to cool and wrapped up prettily to make fabulous credit-crunch gifts.

Biscuits

Even small children can get involved with baking and decorating biscuits and they’ll have great fun mixing the dough and cutting out shapes ready for you to pop into the oven. For a little bit of Christmas magic, try my favorite Christmas biscuit recipe. Crushed boiled sweets melt during the cooking process and then harden to create beautiful little panes of ‘stained’ glass in the middle of your biscuit. These look great hanging on the tree as a Christmas decoration.

Stained Glass window Biscuit Recipe

Ingredients

sunflower oil, for greasing
175g plain flour, plus extra
1 tsp ground ginger
zest 1 orange
100g butter, cold, cut into chunks
50g golden caster sugar
1 tbsp milk
12 fruit-flavoured boiled sweets
icing sugar, to dust
about 120cm thin ribbon , to decorate

Method

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Grease 2 large non-stick baking sheets with oil. Whizz the flour, ginger, zest and butter with 1⁄2 tsp salt to fine crumbs in a food processor. Pulse in the sugar and milk, then turn out and knead briefly on a floured surface until smooth. Wrap in cling film, then chill for about 30 mins.

Flour the work surface again, then roll out the dough to the thickness of a £1 coin. Use 7cm cutters to cut out shapes, then use 4cm cutters to cut out the middles. Carefully lift onto the baking sheets.

Crush the sweets in their wrappers with a rolling pin, then put the pieces into the middles of the biscuits - the sweets should be level with the top of the dough. Bake for 15-20 mins or until the biscuits are golden brown and the middles have melted.

Remember to make a small hole near the top of each one once cooked and still warm if you’re giving these as presents to hang on the tree. Thread ribbon through the holes when cool & dust with icing sugar.

These will keep for a month, but are best eaten within 3 days

Easy Peasy peppermint Creams

A pretty box filled with chocolate dipped peppermint creams is easy to make. Cover the box with cellophane and attach a ribbon and gift tag.

Ingredients

White from one large egg or two small eggs
225g icing sugar
Small amount of peppermint essence
75g plain chocolate

Method

Beat the egg white in a bowl with a fork and sieve the icing sugar in a little at a time, mixing well with a wooden spoon until you have made a stiff paste. Shake a little icing sugar on the work surface and empty the paste onto this.

Add 3 - 4 drops of peppermint essence and gently knead until you have a smooth paste. Have a taste of a small piece and if the flavour is not strong enough, add a few more drops of peppermint essence.

Sprinkle icing sugar over a rolling pin to prevent sticking, and roll the paste to 0.5cm thick. Cut out individual peppermint creams with a cutter and place the peppermint creams onto greaseproof paper. Leave to cool & then dip into melted chocolate.

Herbed Vinegars

Help your children make some delicious herbed vinegar to use at home or to give away as special gifts. If you’ve got herbs growing in your garden get your children to pick a selection; rosemary, sage, thyme and marjoram all make good vinegar.

Trim the herbs and add the sprigs to a pretty bottle (look out for these in charity shops). Fill the bottles with vinegar and screw the lid on tightly. Next, get your children to make some labels with Christmas designs and write the names of the vinegar on the label.

What could be simpler?

Top Tip

Search charity shops for interesting bottles, boxes and plates to package your gifts.
Sterilize jars and bottles by running them through a hot dishwasher cycle.
Ask your child to hand write a copy of the recipe and include it with your present for that personal touch (try cutting a piece of card into the shape of a star or a Christmas tree to write your recipe on).
Buy cheap round cake tins for presenting your cakes and biscuits. As well as looking pretty they can be used for storage once finished with.