Edible Xmas gifts that can be made well in advance.....

cdsmiler

Claire Bear - mum2one beat me to it, but freeze white wine - you can use it in SO many stocks and sauces!! I like SeaBee's idea too - those bottles are lovely.

No cooking this past weekend. Still have that onion chutney and sweet chilli to do!

Clare x

jollymummy

Winged one - I'm going to have a go at onion marmalade. Picked up a Tesco free magazine yesterday and they have a nice recipe in there. It was priced at 87p per jar. Great thing is we have some HUGE Kelsae onions on the allotment and all the ingredients in the cupboard, so ours will be free

Fedupand skint - what do you put in your Winter compote? sounds nice.

candistar

Claire_Bear wrote: »

Hello all, I've been away for a while but plan to join you all again now that it's the run-up to Christmas (in my eyes anyway!)

So far for edible gifts I'm planning blackberry vodka, toffee vodka and cola cube vodka to go into a cocktail hamper for my brother's girlfriend.

Chutneys and jams plus other baked goods to go into a food hamper for OHs parents. Last year I made them one with HM mince pies, boozy Christmas fudge (it wouldn't set though so it ended up more like a sludgy sauce, think I might have overdone it on the booze - whoops!) and cranberry and white chocolate cookies, along with some shop bought stuff too.

I tried to make some blackberry and apple jam but a couple of the jars have gone mouldy on top even though I sterilized them Anyone got any ideas what went wrong? I have quite a lot of the blackberries left in the freeer so could always try again. Will try and go on another foraging mission in the next week too to see if there's any left now so I have enough to last me through the winter.

I'm making the OH a coffee hamper too so might make some coffee cake or coffee truffles to go in that.

Hello I make jam and chutneys quite a lot and there are a number of reasons for mould growth. Mould will grow if you potted the preserve warm (should be piping hot), unsterilised jars, the jars have been stored in a warm environment after potting and lastly too little sugar or vinegar (for chutneys) was added. Also if any blemished fruit made its way into the pan by accident. Hope you try again there's nothing better than homemade jam yummy!

candjsmum

Well i made Nigella Christmas Chutney today and it is absolutley delicious. Couldn't for the life of me get fresh or frozen cranberries as too early so bought some dried ones and put them into a bowl of water over night to re-hydrate. They were fine. Chutney is now bottled and the house smells yummy!!:wave:

got-it-spend-it

I'm wondering about including some pretty print outs of recipes with some of my chutney and biscuit gifts. Has anyone done this? Any opinions on whether it's a good idea or giving away how easy they are to make .

lizalloareds

I want to make raspberry gin but don't know how too!

got-it-spend-it

Ooh, it's been quiet on here!

Just thought I'd let you know that I went in the 99p shop today and found two things I thought might be useful. Firstly they had these FOR Sale in packs of two containing black peppercorns, which is the cheapest I've seen such pretty jars.

They also had these two for 99p in glass bottles.


Then in Lidl I found a big jar of morello cherries in syrup for 89p, which I thought would be good decanted into smaller jars and soaked in amaretto as a little extra gift.

mum2one

got-it-spend-it wrote: »

Ooh, it's been quiet on here!

Just thought I'd let you know that I went in the 99p shop today and found two things I thought might be useful. Firstly they had these FOR Sale in packs of two containing black peppercorns, which is the cheapest I've seen such pretty jars.

They also had these two for 99p in glass bottles.


Then in Lidl I found a big jar of morello cherries in syrup for 89p, which I thought would be good decanted into smaller jars and soaked in amaretto as a little extra gift.

Those sound lovely, just had a vision of baby jar size, great topper for icecream xx

got-it-spend-it

mum2one wrote: »

Those sound lovely, just had a vision of baby jar size, great topper for icecream xx

Thanks hun, I'm thinking of putting them in some of these http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40064702.

I've just made my first ever chutney- green tomato and I'm worried it's too spicy! The recipe said 1tsp of cayenne pepper, which I added but it's got a real kick. I wonder if it might mellow as it matures.........:o.

abdonz

Hi how much vodka do u use in jam? I am a total novice at any homemade things like jams etc.
Also if anyone could give me a basic jam and xhutney recipe I would be very grateful xx.