With Handmade Gifts from the Kitchen at your disposal, you’ll have inspiration for culinary gift ideas for friends and family. Not only are homemade items truly unique, but they show those you care for just how much you care.
Imagine the looks on their faces when your friends open a box of spicy chutneys, or nieces and nephews when they’re surprised by indulgent fudge. And with Handmade Gifts from the Kitchen, you’ll craft items that look as wonderful as they taste, because it features a variety of gift wrapping ideas.
Make a special day even better for someone with something made from the heart!
There are no white elephants among this wonderful collection of homemade gifts to share with friends during the holidays. The recipes are creative, delicious, and most of them use ingredients you can find in your local supermarket. There is something here for everyone, from the novice cook to a professional chef. So check out this collection and give something tasty to the people you love in your life.
Handmade Gifts from the Kitchen gives you over 100 yummy gift giving treats and presentation ideas. Perfect for anyone on your list.
Chapters include:
Baked with Love Candies and Confections For the Pantry From the Garden The Delights of Chocolate A Savory Treat Raise a Glass Small but Perfectly Formed Gifts for the Cook Containers and Packaging Gingerbread House Templates Resource Section
Beautifully laid out and photographed, you will have no end of sweet and savory ideas to wow your friends and family.
Érdekes ötletek sok illusztrációval, jól követhető leírásokkal. Remek választás a karácsonyi ajándékok készítéséhez! Más családi ünnepekre v. barátoknak, ismerősöknek is találhatunk benne meglepiket. Sokféle alapanyagból lehet választani, felhasználni például a kevésbé fogyó fűszereket, szokatlanabb gyümölcsöket.
There isn't anything novel about this cookbook. It is designed for folks who know how to make candy and bake. The thing is, it has a whole whack of good ideas and recipes in one place. I got this off someone who was giving cookbooks away and been deciding whether to keep it or not. It is just so freaking handy...
I was very excited to get an opportunity to review this book. For a few years now, I have handmade Christmas gifts for friends and family, so this was a book after my own heart.
Alison Walker is the Food & Drink editor for Country Living Magazine. In her introduction, she extols the virtues of homemade gifts. You’re preaching to the choir here, Alison. Although, one reason she gives is that it is cheaper. My experience is this is not always the case, but she is right when she says homemade gifts will always be more appreciated than the store bought version.
There is a wide mixture of sweet and savoury recipes, from chocolate treats to jams and chutneys. There are flavoured oils and salts, as well as syrups, sauces and cordials. The recipes cover all seasons and various celebrations, so whatever the occasion, you will not be short of ideas.
The 100 plus recipes are split into nine chapters, such as Sweets For My Sweet, and From The Garden. These are followed by a brief chapter on packaging ideas for your gifts, to ensure they look as good as they taste.
There are nicely staged photos for each of the recipes . However I found the lighting in some a little dark, with the pretty gifts in too much shade. I would have preferred them to be a little brighter, but they work well within the context of the book as it illustrates what you are aiming for in making these recipes.
The instructions are clear and concise, in numbered order which I find much easier to follow. The ingredients are listed in metric but have imperial too should you prefer that. The recipes range from very simple recipes that can be done with children, to the more complicated and time consuming. There is a great amount of choice, so cooks of all levels will be happy with this book.
The ingredients run from common-place store cupboard items to things you can find in every decent supermarket. Beginners may need to be aware that a small few of the recipes contain slightly more exotic ingredients, such as Lavender Sugar (although the book tells you how to make your own), or rose petals, but if you are a keen gardener (so long as they are not sprayed) you can use your own.
Another word of caution to beginners is that some of the recipes seem to have the wrong quantities, or there are errors in the instructions. The Mocha Muffins includes enough ingredients for 24 full size muffins, yet the recipe clearly states a mini muffin tin is to be used. Another example is the Viennese Whirls which includes an instruction to blend the flour and baking powder, however baking powder isn’t listed as an ingredient. I can only think that this recipe has been converted from plain flour and raising agent, to just self-raising flour (the listed ingredient) but the instructions were not updated. None of the recipes I tried had a fault, but it makes me wonder how many more of the recipes have not been tested prior to printing.
I really wanted to like this book, and it has inspired a few ideas, but the recipe errors just make me hesitant to recommend it.
This book is well put together and looks nice. It has great pictures and instructions throughout and this is why I give it three stars.
The reason I took away two stars is because most of the recipes that I would like to use are ones that I don't want to use because of ingredients. This book will have you running around for things most people don't keep in the house which is fine if you are making these for gifts. My reason for not liking that is because many of the recipes I know can be made with other ingredients and I am not sure why we need the fancier ones? There are recipes that call for rice flour when I have made similar and just as tasty versions with basic flour (shortbreads). Also a lot of the recipes call for corn syrup which I try not to eat. I do understand some candies must be made with corn syrup, but there are cookies and other baked treats that I have made similar recipes with sugars just fine so I'm not sure why they all call for corn syrup. Some of the other maybe easy maybe harder to find items that are interesting but not kept in the home would be things like lavender sugar, crystalized flower petals, red rose petals, etc.
This book is definitely for the baker and candy maker looking for something different but I wouldn't recommend for a beginner or novice at all as they might not know how to track down the oddities.
Whether holiday or gift inspired, you'd be hard pressed to not find more than a few options that fit your budget or taste. Not only are the recipes fun, but inside are great tips on creative packaging for that made by hand look.
Perfect as a gift for someone who bakes and entertains a lot.
Nice book of recipes that you can make and give as gifts. The photographs were attractive and some of the recipes were interesting and others, while typical holiday and gift-giving fare, had one or more unique ingredients that made them interesting. Nice book of ideas for the crafty cook.