Old style christmas hamper challenge

pobby_2

I'll play. Am making up about half a dozen food and drink hampers for friends who are getting increasingly difficult to buy for.

Update on what I've done so far:

* Made 4 different flavours of vodka and ordered nice bottles. As soon as they arrive (please ... this week) I will bottle up and label.
* Made about a ton of christmas chutney! Warning the Delia recipe is yummy but when she says makes 1 litre jar it actually makes about double that!! (got some nice kilner jars from ikea)
* Made marmalade
* Made a test batch of white choc fudge (recipe on OS) was yummy but VERY rich. Anyone got any idea how long it will keep for?

Still to do:
*Shortbread
*Maybe some home made chocs, not yet decided.

Was also going to do some of the muffin mix in a jar but the christmas chutney excess used all my spare jars!! So am going to wait to see if there is enough room in the hampers once I make them up and if there is make a mad dash to ikea for more jars!!

Have bought some nice baskets in ikea for £2.49 each to put everything in and can't wait to start making them all up !!!

Nix143

Well my mum and dad, the in-laws and my uncle are all getting homemade gubbins this year - done deliah's shallots in sherry vinegar and christmas chutney so far. Mum, Dad and Uncle will get a christmas cake as well - but MIL is a demon baker so need an alternative for theirs

Also making my best friend at work a cloutie dumpling as she can't buy them round here

Good luck with all your hard work everyone xx

Polly_Pod

how did all the hampers go down??

mine went wel........ i think LOL

nungirl

Have read your posts and am hooked! I soooo want to do this, i think its much more thoughtful and the fact that it would save me a fortune is a bonus! Any ideas for a relative newbie like myself?

roosterbean

Hi, Wilkos are doing kilner jars at £1.50 each. Does anyone know where I can get some small pretty bottles for my strawberry vodka please?....

jasmine_from_the_north

The pound shop or the pound empire (the same thing basically...) do sell kilner jars and other sorts of jars, glass containers etc.. Give it a try, they are cheap, I bought my standard kilner jars there for a pound each for my summer preserving marathon. xxx

chardonnay_2

great thread - any chance posters could link to the recipe or post the recipe for us novices

BlimusOreilly

I don't know if this has been mentioned anywhere else, so apologies if it has, but last year when making our food hampers I couldn't get hold of enough pre-used bottles for sauces and oils so looked into buying new ones. They were so expensive that it worked out cheaper to buy Tesco value ketchup and brown sauce and use them. We decanted the sauce into other squeezy bottles and used them in cooking (a bit too vinegary on their own!).

naturally_2

Ooh good tip about using value bottles, will have to invesigate jars too because I decided to chuck all my jars I was saving and now want to join this thread! Got some apples and some crab apples and a few hawthorne berries, so going to make crab apple jelly and probably the infamous apple cheese.

I thought the hampers would be useful for "parents" - i.e. I'm spending a lot on a set of triplets, so their parents will hopefully understand when their gift is a bit of a token gesture. A couple of home made chutneys etc and I thought a few treats like mini stollen from Lidl (in stock now, no idea what sell-by dates are). My dutch colleage brought in some wonderful biccies called.... um... I think it was stropwaffles? So he's going to get me some more for my hampers when he next visits home, but I also discovered tesco sell them in the bakery section for £1.50 a packet and calls them Toffee-filled waffles. Honestly, if they are anything like the traditional dutch ones they are DIVINE!!!

On the subject of things keeping, Fudge apparently keeps for a month. IME it has still been absolutely fine for another month after that. Beware if you're making to the Nestle online recipe however, as it misses an ingredient or insruction stage! (I will see if I can dig it out and work out what it was...)

knithappens

just a heads up tesco had kilner jars on offer at 87 p this week i picked three up, i use them for storing everything but will be using these ones for homemade gifts