Homemade Food Gifts - Candy, Infused Vodka, Etc.

Food gifts have always been popular. They are perfect for those people in your life that are hard to buy for or don't need/want anything.  Today's list of homemade gifts includes a wide assortment of candy as well as some nuts, pastries and infused alcohol.  If you missed my cookie roundup, head on over to this post.

Candy

Salted Vanilla Bean Caramels  This quickly became one of my most popular treats.  Everyone absolutely LOVES these caramels and hoards them whenever they're available.

Cake Balls  This is my most popular food recipe of all time.  People are really into cake balls.  I go for simple decorating, but you can go all out with fancy designs.

English Toffee  Right next to the caramels, this is one of my favorite candies.

Truffles  Homemade or not, truffles are impressive gifts.  This post shows four different recipes: Champagne Truffles, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles, Dark Chocolate Strawberry Balsamic Truffles, and Toffee Truffles.

Chocolate Bark  This is one of the easiest candies you can make.  Use any chocolate, fill ins and topping

Eggnog Fudge  This fudge is a nice addition to your regular fudge recipes, and the white chocolate and eggnog flavors go perfectly together.

Butter Pecan Fudge  This is my absolute favorite fudge!  I highly recommend you try this recipe.

Miscellaneous Food and Drink

Cinnamon Rolls  My aunt always makes a ton of sweet rolls and delivers them before Christmas so we can eat them on Christmas morning.  This is not her recipe, but I love her gifting idea.  This recipe makes 7-8 pans so it's perfect for giving away (don't forget to keep some for yourself).

Coffee Cake  It's breakfast, it's a snack, it's dessert!  Who wouldn't want a delicious all purpose cake?  It's a heck of a lot better than a brick of fruit cake.

Spiced Nuts  This is a great (healthy) alternative to all these sweets!

Candied Walnuts  Mmmm, more nuts great for snacking!  Can't go wrong with candied walnuts (well, unless you're allergic).  If you make extra, they're great on salads or these amazing appetizers: Grape, Goat Cheese and Candied Walnut Bruschetta.

Tea Infused Vodka  Who says iced tea is only a summer drink?  Mid-winter we need a little reminder that the sun and warm days will be back again.  This is my most popular post of all time.


** Contact me if you want me to do your holiday baking for you! **

Eggnog Fudge

I really like eggnog, so it's a good thing it's only in stores around the holidays.  As far as I know, I never had eggnog until high school.  I think I asked my mom to buy some so I could try it.  Maybe my parents don't like it?  Maybe it's just something they didn't have while they were growing up?  Neither my mom or dad's side of the family offer it during the holidays.  The first year I spent Christmas with Kevin's family, I had my first homemade eggnog, what a treat!

This fudge definitely tastes like eggnog, yum!  It was a complete success, and it was fairly quick and easy too.

Eggnog Fudge

From: Recipe Girl

Yield: 60 to 70 pieces

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

3/4 cup dairy eggnog

10.5 oz white chocolate bars, chopped into small pieces (I used an 11 oz package of Ghiradelli white chocolate chips)

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, plus a little more for the top of the fudge

7 oz jar marshmallow creme (I used 7.5 oz jar of Fluff)

1 tsp rum extract

Line an 8 or 9-inch square pan with foil and let it hang over the sides. Butter the foil.

In a heavy, 3-quart saucepan combine sugar, butter and eggnog. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Continue boiling 8 to 10 minutes over medium heat or until a candy thermometer reaches 234°F, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Remove from heat.

Using a wooden spoon, work quickly to stir in chopped white chocolate and nutmeg until chocolate is melted and smooth. Stir in marshmallow creme and rum extract. Beat until well blended and then pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle a little freshly ground nutmeg on top. Let stand at room temperature until cooled. Refrigerate if you’d like to speed up the process.

When completely cool, cut into squares. Store in a covered container.

*This fudge freezes well. Place in a covered container; it will keep for several weeks.  

Recipes You Missed From 2009

Even though my last recipe post was way back in --holy crap! way back in July, I have been cooking and baking up a storm since then. Even though I take pictures of a lot of food (over half of our pics from 2009 were of food), I'm really bad about putting it here. To ease my mind about my failure to follow through, I'll post pictures and links to the original recipe for some of the food I made last year. For dinners, I do a lot of just throwing things together and voila something good happens. I need to be better at writing it down so I can put those recipes up here, that is after all, the purpose of this blog.

Almond Cake with Strawberry Rhubarb Compote:



Stuffed Zucchini : I just whipped this up one night. The grilled zucchini “shell” is stuffed with a mixture of ground turkey, summer squash, zucchini, green peppers, onions, garlic and tomato sauce and topped with goat cheese.

This summer I made my Mom’s Potato Salad which resulted in my first time hard boiling eggs.

Snickerdoodle Blondies: 

Frittata and Sage Sausage: One weekend when my parents were in town, I decided to make a frittata (my first time and I just “winged it”) with whatever veggies we had in the fridge and I mixed fresh sage into some bulk pork sausage. The hot sauce garnish added a nice flavor to the frittata.

Butter Pecan Fudge: Best fudge EVER!

3 Layer Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling: I offered to make an engagement cake for Kevin's Uncle. The happy couple requested anything with chocolate and raspberry so I turned to The Smitten Kitchen's Double Chocolate Layer Cake. This is now my go-to chocolate cake recipe. I used Deb's raspberry filling instead of ganache and frosted it with white buttercream.

I made a Smash Cake for Sophie's 1st Birthday (Kevin's goddaughter) using the same chocolate cake but omitted the raspberry filling. This was my first time using my icing tips. It was supposed to look like a block, but it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

Outrageous Brownies: Half this recipe and bake in a 9x13 pan for about 25 min.

We had a Bacon Party! My sister even dressed up as bacon, luckily none of our guests tried to eat her. Avocado, Feta And Pancetta Bruschetta (FYI: rocket is arugula), Proscuitto Wrapped Figs, Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Bacon Frosting, Chocolate Covered Bacon, Candied Bacon, Bacon Ice Cream and so much more!

Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy: Check out that steam! I wouldn’t use this biscuit recipe again (they were only okay), but the gravy was really good. I added a little more milk until I reached the gravy to sausage ratio I wanted.

Mushroom Stuffed Roast (based on this recipe): Remember when I was searching for butcher’s twine? This was why. The wine should also be noted, Merritt Winery's Cabernet Sauvignon is our favorite red and it's under $20.

Homemade Marshmallows: To make the mini marshmallows, I spread the "goo" on a prepared cookie sheet instead of the labor intensive piping that Alton Brown suggests.