Edible Christmas Gifts

This Christmas season, instead of spending time at over-crowded malls, spend some time in creating personalized edible gifts for your food-loving friends and family members. Here are some edible gift ideas that should suit every taste and fit in every budget.
Many recipients love to get a box full of delicious goodies, especially if the contents are homemade or have been chosen specially by you. Of course, there are many companies, both online and offline, who will allow you to choose some of the ingredients and design your own edible gift hamper. These will then be shipped or mailed to your friends and family. However, if you take the time to personally select the ingredients and make your own gift hamper, your efforts will be even more appreciated. You can wrap each ingredient in colorful paper, mix and match some homemade goodies with bought items and pack them all up in pretty baskets or boxes. You could either spray-paint the box or wrap the basket in beautiful wrapping paper, tied with a satin ribbon. Let us now look at what kind of edible gift hampers you could create for Christmas.

• For chocolate lovers: The easiest thing to do is to choose from a selection of gourmet chocolates – anything from classic milk to those with interesting shapes and new flavors should please a chocolate lover. You can also include some homemade muffins or chocolate chip cookies. A nice touch would be to also include a chocolate fondue set along with some special treats like dried fruit or shortbread that they can use to dip into the fondue.
• For vegetarians: There are a wide variety of vegetarian ingredients for you to choose from. Gourmet cheeses, jars of vegetarian pasta sauces, chutneys and pickles, dried fruits and nuts – all these are a vegetarian’s delight. You should instruct the recipient to store the hamper in moisture free place till they open it. You could also throw in a cookbook that covers only vegetarian recipes or vegetable seeds for your friend to grow vegetables at home. If you know that they are passionate about organic food, you could select only organic vegetables and products making your gift extra special.
• For spice lovers: Buy a bunch of attractive spice jars and fill them with some of the more popular spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Again, a nice touch would be to include a pestle and mortar or a spice rack. You could also include homemade biscuits or sweets which can be dusted lightly with cinnamon sugar or vanilla-infused sugar.
• For the coffee, tea lovers: The obvious choices would be to choose a variety of gourmet tea or coffee packets and wrap them up in a box or basket. You could also gift a coffeemaker or teapot with a couple of nice mugs. Homemade biscuits or biscotti would make the gift complete.
• For the cheese lovers: Many gourmet cheeses come in small sizes and are perfect for this kind of gift. You can choose a nice selection of four or five different cheeses and present them with pickled onions, good chutneys and cheese biscuits.