Xmas baking for gifts

badjelly1, Jun 12, 9:26am
I would like to start practising some, do something different this year... .

stormbaby, Jun 12, 11:26am
I have the coolest "little" recipe book I love for this, and picked it up at the supermarket years ago. Its The Australian Womens Weekly Gourmet Gifts. Its only A5 size, softcover, but inside are recipes for things like cookies, gifts in jars like fetta in oil, curry pastes, pesto, vinegars, jams, relish, sweets (from truffles to turkish delight) and biscotti's. I have used this for years and make my favourites every year. It shows how to recyle containers, jars, boxes etc to wrap, or just use raffia. I am going to dye a whole lot of raffia this year and put it up on TradeMe for sale for doing just this sort of thing. I am a big fan of a small gift of something delicious, home made, for Christmas!
My favs in this book are the parmesan/oregano/garlic bread sticks, the little almond biscuits (they are made in the book as Valentine cookies, but we use Christmas cookie cutters, white icing and green and white crystals), and biscotti's.

greerg, Jun 12, 10:32pm
I have always made baskets and individual items as Christmas gifts. The basics for a basket are homemade fruit mince pies with star shaped lids and shortbread stars with silver cachous on the points and Russian fudge but the rest varies. Last year I included Nauru's Bounty truffles and Cookessentials mocha chocolate biscotti and maybe speculaas biscuits willbe inthere this year. Decorative jars of lemon honey or chutneys and bottles of lemon cordial depend on who its for. I recycle baskets I am given and buy Christmas tin trays when the Warehouse has its pre Xmas 3 for 2 sale so they are only a couple of dollars each. Put the goodies in cello bags, tie with red/green/white curling ribbon and use a few Xmas gold stickers. Pile bags on tray, enclose all in sheet of clear cello and tie the top with lots of curling ribbon (big rolls ofetn on TM very cheaply and they last for ever).

cookessentials, Aug 4, 12:04pm
I have bumped the great Christmas recipe thread that has a heap of great ideas on it.