Simple baked treats make a wonderful gift.
If you like to cook and you have friends and family who like to eat, consider sharing edible gifts with your loved ones. The range of gifts is enormous, from simple to elaborate, from nuts to soup and from items already pre-cooked to things the receivers could cook themselves. Edible gifts are available for purchase, but they are much more affordable when you make them yourself. The simplest affordable gifts include any baked item wrapped with care and love, such as quick bread, cookies or special loaf breads like rye or raisin bread. Other affordable edible gifts can also be easy to make.
Simplest Gifts
A mug filled with coated spoons is a terrific gift for a coffee drinker.
Flavored coffee stirrers are so affordable that you can give them in mass quantities when you have a large group to give to, or you can give 20 to one person. Simply dip a metal or plastic teaspoon into melted chocolate or chocolate mixed with an additional flavoring such as peppermint oil or orange oil. Let this dry, and wrap with plastic or cellophane. Add a cheerful bow and a small card with instructions for use. You could give the spoon alongside an inexpensive mug.
Themed Gift Baskets
You can exercise your creativity when creating a gift basket.
Affordable baskets, either large or small, are easy to find at your local craft store or hardware store. Consider the needs and hobbies of the recipient, and create a gift with either homemade items or purchased items. Wrap with cellophane, add a colorful bow and you're done. Possible themes include a movie basket with packages of popcorn, a soft drink and a candy bar, a gardener's herb basket with some seed packets and savory muffins backed with chives or poppy seeds or a sports fan basket with popcorn, an issue of a sports magazine and some sunflower seeds.
Food Bouquets
You can make or buy speciality suckers for a sucker vase.
We've seen these at great cost from retailers, but you can make candy bouquets at home. Ideas include small suckers arranged in a child's themed glass or mug, wrapped candies and candy bars hot glued on skewers and arranged in a vase or gingerbread cookies wrapped in cellophane with skewers glued to the cellophane.
Gifts that Recipients Can Cook Themselves
Rice for a pilaf receipe or beans for a soup make good edible gifts.
For those who like to cook, an edible gift can be something to that the recipient can make later, with the ingredients and a recipe card included in the gift. For bean soup for instance, you can layer different colored beans and spices in a mason jar---add a wooden spoon if desired. For a unique salad, fill a bowl with a special salad dressing, some sugared, toasted walnuts in a small jar and another jar of dried cranberries.
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