25+ Fabulous Food Gifts for Neighbors/Friends/Coworkers
Tis the season for gift-giving! And not just the kind you buy at the store. As you and I know, homemade gifts are some of the best, especially when it comes to food!
I’m going to be posting more great food gifts over the next few weeks but here’s a roundup of some of my very favorite holiday food gifts this time of year. If you put together one of those epic cookie plates (love those!), next week I’ll also be posting the best cookie/treat recipes to add to your cookie plate.
Many of the recipes below include packaging ideas, but to summarize, I like to keep things simple with packaging and almost always use cellophane treat bags for packaging caramels and truffles and caramel apples and everything inbetween. I like the 5X11-inch bags for a bigger bundle of treats – there are smaller bags (like these 4X9-inch) for smaller portions. Hobby Lobby and other similar-type stores have pretty good selections (of bags and cute boxes and all sorts of cute packaging ideas) if you have a store like that in your area. I like to tie the top with a bit of colored twine and a tag and call it good. You could get as fancy as you like!
Some of my favorite out-of-the-box gift ideas would have to be a big, huge, pretty gourmet caramel apple, a jar of dulce de leche or hot fudge sauce, unbaked cookie dough for your friend to bake later, and homemade hot chocolate truffles. And don’t forget the almighty cheeseball – I love giving cheeseballs as gifts. Kind of breaks up the sugar rush of the season. I’m also gifting homemade vanilla extract this year (sorry I didn’t get a DIY up in time this year, but promise it will be up early next year in plenty of time for the holiday season with a cute, free printable).
I’ve said for years that food is my love language and I realize that little fact even more during the holidays. Happy holiday baking!
Would you be willing to share your vanilla extract printable, even though you don’t have a blog post on it yet?
I’ll see if I can get it into a format for sharing. 🙂
packaging = buy one of those big sheets of clear crinkly plastic, cut it into squares the size you need, wrap it around the candies/treats, and tie it with a ribbon (and curl the ribbon ends w/ scissors!)
lots of candies/treats like this are gf too, so good for all those friends 🙂
What are the best cookies to make ahead of time and freeze? I need to get some cookies made up ahead of time so I can just pull them out when I need them around the holidays, but I know all cookies are not created equal when it comes to freezing.
I freeze almost all of the cookies (usually just avoid the ones with frosting).
I just came on here to look for ideas for food gifts! Perfect timing! 🙂
Wow! Thank you for all the suggestions. I made the cheeseballs and took them around today! My month is going to be crazy and so I did it early. They were delicious.
How do you package the cheese ball for gifting?
I usually wrap a little piece of plastic wrap around the top and pinch it on the bottom of the cheeseball if that makes sense. Sometimes I’ll put a little bow or wrap some twine around, too.
Makes sense! Thanks!!
I love gifting homemade things and food ones always seem the easiest? Haha, I think that until I get myself into making 10 of the same thing or whatever. I just did a bunch of vanilla extract for some people and am thinking of homemade marshmallows for kids…thinking…
I gave away cookie dough a few years ago too! I thought I was the only one! Great minds think alike! 🙂 I did that so people could bake it when they wanted it, like after the holidays are over and there aren’t so many treats lying around. I think a bunch of people just ate the dough though, which is probably what I would do too! This year I’m going to make a few varieties of rice Krispy treats. One of my dilemmas is getting everything packaged and delivered before the treats go stale. So I figured the Krispy treats would stay good longer and I wouldnt have to stress about getting them delivered right away! I’ve also stashed my plates in my freezer and delivered them as I could. That also worked great. I love all of your options though! Now I want to make all of them!
That chocolate chip toffee blondie mix in a jar looks incredible! I’m going to have to make that for ME soon!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
We’ve made the Gourmet Caramel Apples for years. My boys like to help. Going to have to try that cheese ball.
Great list. Ideas are now flowing in my brain.