Homemade Christmas Food Gifts
Making gifts at home can be a cheap, easy and fun way to share Christmas joy with your friends and family. If you save glass jars to be reused, and buy your ingredients from a refill shop, then not only will these gifts look and taste fantastic, but they will also be plastic- and waste-free.
Sweet, salty and spicy almonds
These addictive nuts are great for adding to a Christmas grazing platter – the salty tamari, sweet agave and smoky, spicy urfa biber balance each other perfectly. Toasting the nuts low and slow in the oven is key to the crunchy texture.
Ingredients
200g almonds
1 tbsp tamari
1 tsp rapeseed oil
1 tbsp agave
1 tsp urfa biber
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to gas mark 4 / 350°F / 180°C / 160°C fan
Add the almonds, tamari and rapeseed oil to a bowl and mix. Transfer to a baking tray and spread out evenly. Toast in the oven for 10 minutes. Stir the nuts so that they flip over, then return to the oven for a further 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the agave and urfa biber to the original mixing bowl – the residual tamari and oil will help coat the nuts evenly, and you don’t want to waste any flavour!
Remove the baking tray from the oven, return the nuts to the bowl with the syrup and spice. Stir to coat, then tip the nuts back on to the tray and pop back in the oven for a final two minutes. Be careful, as the sugar in the syrup can burn quickly!
Allow to cool before transferring to a pretty jar, optionally decorating with twine, ribbon and a gift tag.
Turmeric latte mix
Turmeric has loads of health benefits, but buying pre-made spice latte mixes can be incredibly expensive considering how affordable to component ingredients are. Mixing your own is really easy and makes a lovely gift.
Ingredients
6tbsp ground turmeric
2tbsp ground cinnamon
2tbsp sugar (coconut, caster, demerara)
2tsp ground cardamom
A few twists of freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
Add all the ingredients to a 170 g jar (you could try saving your Nutcessity ones), and give the jar a good shake to mix.
Write the instructions on a decorative label; add one tsp of the spice mix to 240ml hot milk of choice. A teaspoon added to hot chocolate is also delicious!
