thefoodiegifthunter.co.uk

One of my faves!

You may have picked up that today is Cakes for Haiti day, and hopefully you’ve been busy knocking up something delicious! I’ve done blondies and hummingbird muffins, which are new to me. Dr T suggested I could have done all cakes or biscuits beginning with h, but that would be taking it a tad too far for me!

So if you need some inspiration for a last minute cake sale, or for a more leisurely bake, then these are the ones I either work from regularly, or wish I had on the shelf.

1. Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache – I know I’m boring, I’ve written about this book several times since I bought it, but I love it. I particularly love it for a) fabulous tasting cakes b) getting veg into things I know kids will eat and c) giving me some new ideas on what to do with the annual courgette glut. Courgette and coconut cake is the way to go, and I adore the Chocolate Beetroot Brownie.

2. Sky High – I am a big fan of the He Eats blog, and regularly have cake envy. Ed regularly bakes from the Sky High book, and they always look fantastic, which is down to his skill. But I so want to have a go. So this is one my wish list!

3. Cake Chic- these are very posh looking cakes from Peggy Porschen, that would be the sort of things I would want to make for a girls get-together. They are not the sort you would knock up in a quick afternoon baking session, but definitely worth it for a big occasion. One to work up to I think, but worth the effort.

4. How to Be a Domestic Goddess – I sort of hesitate to mention this one, as I am sure so many people have this, but it is a book I come back to again and again for baking inspiration. It’s particularly good for baking with kids, or for recipes that you remember from way back but have forgotten how to do.

5. Exceptional Cakes - if you spot a branch of Baker & Spice then worth stopping by for great cakes. If you want to recreate it at home, then this is the book for you. It covers everything you could wish to bake from cakes to muffins, biscuits to doughnuts and meringues. Which should keep everyone happy for at least one round of afternoon tea!

So, whether you bake for Haiti, or just for the joy of it, these would give you some ideas. No matter how depressing a day is, homemade cakes make everything seem just a little bit better!

Learn more skills than you ever knew about

I got a tweet last week regarding a new website, ooh.com, which looks really interesting if you want to find, or even run, a great cookery course or experience near you. Whilst it doesn’t only cover food and drink, at the moment there are just under 170 courses listed across the UK.

From West Cornwall to the Highlands, there is a huge variety on offer. Always wanted to know how to cook in a wood-fired oven? You can do it in a day in Shaftesbury for £160. Want to learn to smoke your own produce? Yep, you can learn to do that too.

There are courses for designer dinners and intensive courses for wannabe chalet cooks, courses at famous places and courses at someone’s house. And if you fancy teaching, then you could even sign yourself up to run any kind of course, not just cookery. Pass on your knowledge of bee-keeping, or how to build a wind turbine, or even hide working and buckskin course. The sky is only limited by your passion and knowledge.

I think a day course (or longer) makes a great gift for a foodie, particularly those who are a little difficult to please! After all, getting a new skill to brag about has to get extra brownie points! Have a look at the site, and keep an eye on how it develops. Personally, I am hoping to have time to get on the Parisian memoir writing master class!

Fabulous photo of domestic classes past from Cornell University Library.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

I think most places around the country are about to start half term (I know, it seems like they just went back). There is good news, roads will generally be quieter. But homes with kids may not be! So this is a perfect opportunity to get kids in the kitchen and get them busy cooking up a storm. There is no better way to get them involved with food than getting them involved in it’s preparation.

So, this post is a bit of a collaboration between me and Mini Gourmet Girl, as MGG has acquired a number of cookbooks over her 8 years (can’t think where she gets that habit from) and she has some favourites, as do I, for really getting stuck in in the kitchen. Here goes:

The Usborne Cookbook for Children

1. The Usborne Cookbook for Children - this is MGG’s favourite, and you can regularly find her poring over it before coming to tell me what she wants to cook. There’s a good mix of savoury and sweet dishes, both hot and cold, and every step is well-illustrated. There are even useful chef’s tips, like how to make olives less salty, and covers everything from basics like rice and bread through to a very scrummy chocolate cake.

Kids' Kitchen

2. Kids’ Kitchen by Fiona Bird – we’ve been playing with this one recently, as Fiona and her publishers kindly sent us a copy. I like the format: individual wipe clean recipe cards, plus some how to cards as well. The colour coding helps them work through all the five major food groups of the Government’s healthy eating initiatives, covering fruit to grains, veg to oils. The steps are clearly written and easy to follow, and the results have so far been delicious. And all the kids I’ve had in the kitchen have loved having their own card to work from and I love being able to wipe them down! I think this is an innovative and interesting approach to kids cookbooks, and worth a look.

3. The River Cottage Family Cookbook – I think this is probably my favourite book for cooking with MGG. I love the explanations of the basics of cooking, of helping kids to understand why things work and how. MGG loves the Victoria Sponge recipe, where you weigh your eggs and match everything else up. This is probably a great book for sevens and over, and will probably be a book they dip in and out of for years.

Family Food

4. Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking by Heston Blumenthal- this one must be for the molecular gastronomes of the future! Actually, it’s a lot less  contrived than you might think, but will still appeal to the slightly more geeky cook. We have cooked less from this one, but MGG has enjoyed doing things like making cartouches for sauces and things. It’s worth having just to marvel that this is the first cookbook that Heston wrote, as I don’t think many of us would have thought that family cooking would have been where his writing started out.

5. The Gastrokid Cookbook: Feeding a Foodie Family in a Fast-Food World- this is a great all round book, both for cooking with, and for, kids to help expand their food horizons. The recipes are tasty, quick to put together and guaranteed to generate clean plates all round! I also lover their courgette hummus for being antoher way to get rid of the courgette glut at the end of the summer!

I honestly don’t think it matters much what you cook with kids, as long as you keep it fairly simple and quick, as they tend not to have great attention spans. Small cakes always work well for me as you get two bites of activity: one to make them and one to decorate them! Go on, go mad with the sprinkles! Don’t rely in your local Sainsbury’s, order now from somewhere like Splat or Cupcake Style. Of course they’ll be on sugar overload, but isn’t that what holidays are for?

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

It’s hard to believe we’re nearly at the end of another year. As always in this household, there’s been a lot of eating over the year, from eating in to eating out, eating in the UK and eating overseas, eating alone and eating with friends. In fact, eating with lots of friends. So, here’s my year in eating:

January

Not a clue what we did in January. No photos of food. The calendar says we had dinner at the Red Lion, which is always a treat.

February

February

Photography by Mini Gourmet Girl, taken at Jamie’s Italian in Bath. Brilliant night out, great restaurant concept, great food, pretty stunning mojitos. Staggered back to our home for the night, the Queensberry, which I would highly recommend.

March

March

March brought the arrival of the breadmaker, and a whole lot of flour of all kinds. Dr T is busy supporting Whissendine Mill, I keep The Flour Bin going, ordering in all kinds of wheat and gluten free flours. I think we have to give the bread making honours to Dr T, yet to to turn out a decent gluten free one.

April

April

Easter brings a whole heap of chocolate, and also my first attempt at Simnel cake. I adore marzipan and so this is my idea of a heavenly cake. I’ll be doing it all over again in 2010. With perhaps more marzipan.

May

May

May saw me in one of my favourite cities in the whole world: NYC. Making news in the UK around the same time was the Babycakes bakery, so I headed down to the Lower East Side to see if they could make gluten and wheat free cakes good. You know what, not bad at all! Although later in the year I would discover that I preferred all the recipes in Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache to anything from Babycakes.

June

June

June was eventful. I took the plunge and decided to commit myself to writing The Foodie Gift Hunter, whilst letting Problem Presents look after itself. Right decision. I also helped cater for 150 for a surprise birthday party. I know slates have come in for a bit of slagging off recently, but I loved how these starters looked. They were a bit of a joke really, as the birthday girl’s husband is a builder, the slates really are roof tiles costing about 75p each, and probably are now on a roof.

July

July

As usual, July saw us decamping to France, to the Charente Maritime. So many great food moments, but I think my birthday lunch at Bistrot du Marin was the high point from a taste perspective. The mussel barbecue was the most unusual.

August

August

We were raiding some new to us local foodstuffs in the school holidays. Staffordshire oatcakes were interesting, especially when pimped up with black pudding and apples. Stichelton became a regular item in the fridge.

September

September

The end of the school holidays saw me convert MGG from her usual request for Chinese on our trip to London to some great Turkish delights at Safra. She just requested to go back next week. I’ve put my neck out to say I think Turkish food will be on the up in the year ahead, and it’s definitely got 1 vote from MGG.

October

October

With Halloween falling on a Saturday, MGG and I spent a fun afternoon creating trick or treat goodies from scratch. Kids seemed genuinly surprised and happy when they got dragon eye cookies, zombie eyeballs and crunchie bones in a paper cone.

November

November

Ah, November, month of memorable eating in Blackpool! To be honest, would rather remember making Osso Buco for the first time, although there weren’t so many laughs!

December

December

For some, December is all about Christmas. For me, I can’t worry about Christmas until I’ve created MGG’s birthday cake. This year involved less terrible language than usual, possibly due to reading the instructions in advance and buying the right kit.

So, here’s hoping that 2010 is just as interesting from a food perspective, with new recipes, new places and new experiences.

Panic! Someone made Christmas 25th December!

It’s a terrible thing. No one warned you that Christmas was coming, and this year it was going to be on December 25^th. How inconsiderate!

 So, you can face into it being a very cold and lonely Christmas sat out in the shed if you buy nothing at all. Or, worse, buy something really horrid and nasty in a panic. And really, there is no need. If you’ve got a corner shop or even garage shop, you could even bring them into play, but with a note of caution! We’ll be using them to supplement or complement a gift, rather than being the gift. Here’s some suggestions:

 1. This is a good time to either renew or set up suitable magazine subscriptions for them. Of course, there’s Olive and Delicious, and even Food & Travel, but you could stretch the reading matter a bit. Try a subscription to Cook Vegetarian, Taste Italia or Great British Food or go further afield and buy them a subscription to an overseas mag. I would think Donna Hay or Saveur would be good choices, or even Everyday Food, the latest from the Martha Stewart stable. You should be able to print out an e-card, or at least make your own, from most of the providers, and you might even be able to find the latest copy in your local corner shop so you could pop that in their stocking with the e-card.

 2. A lot of the gift experience companies will let you print out the details of the experience or e-vouchers when you’ve paid, and many of them have upgraded their gourmet offers. Try Red Letter Days, which has everything from sushi making to Indian cooking masterclasses, Borough Market gastro tours with Celia Brooks Brown to tea tasting and blending with Alex Probyn. If you want to go upscale, Buy A Gift offer an intensive masterclass with Jean Christophe Novelli himself, and includes a luxury night away. At the opposite end of things, £20 would bring 3 months of spices arriving through the post, which is interesting, and your corner shop might have some spices you could wrap up to go with the e-voucher. I’d go for something like whole nutmeg if you can get it, or cinnamon sticks, as they both look really festive.

 3. On a similar theme, you can always print out e-tickets for any kind of travel reservation. Where would you take a foodie? Well, really, you could go anywhere with the right research. Whitby, for the best fish and chips. Morocco, and perhaps get them taught how to make the perfect tagine. Or even Bruges to just take in mussels, beer and chocolate. Just Google your destination and best restaurant etc, and you’re bound to come up with a decent itinerary. I really like i-Escape for their edited choice of places, or there’s always Alastair Sawday. If anyone wants to book for me, I’d like a few nights at Riad Alkantara in Fes. Please.

 4. Use the power of modern technology and download stuff. Putting “cooking” into the search bar over at the iTunes store throws out a whole load of cooking videos and podcasts, with everything from Korean to vegan. More interested in the liquid stuff? There’s everything from wine tutorials through to cocktail shaking. Load it up, wrap it up and they can watch and learn something new.

 5. Try a gift voucher, or the virtual version, for a great foodie shop. FoodFullStop is one of my favourites, and you can order any value you like. You get a code emailed to you, and I guess you could get creative with a bit of imagery and the printer. There are great things they’ll be able to choose from, like goodies from the Inverawe Smokehouses or The Cheese Shed, at their own leisure, and then enjoy this gift all over again when the stuff arrives.

6. Bake. Not sure it matters what, but I would go for something easy and always welcome, like

When in doubt, bake brownies!

chocolate brownies. Doesn’t take long, and it’s hard to be mad at anyone bearing a plate of deliciously gooey chocolate brownies. The corner shop may even be able to yield up a suitable tea towel to wrap the plate up in, so that it feels like a present. Flapjack is another good one; just don’t try anything too complicated, particularly if you’re going to have to raid the corner shop for the ingredients. For instance, the average shop may not provide everything you need for the fabulous Dulce de Leche cake, and there may be a lot cursing whilst you attempt a genoise sponge late on Christmas Eve.

7. Try the corner shop but don’t buy anything that looks remotely festive. Wooden spoons, always useful (although perhaps avoid a rolling pin), and likely to be in stock. If they’ve got an extra virgin olive oil then go with that. Bottle of champagne, not original, but better than nothing (move away from the Lambrini though). I know my corner shop is not typical, but they stock Tiptree jam and a range of local pickles and chutney. If yours does anything similar, then good choices, likewise local honey.

  So, may these be a lucky seven for preventing Christmas out in the cold. If you need last minute wrapping paper and the festive stuff looks really naff, my best tip is go with brown paper and decorate it yourself (come on, you remember how to do potato printing) or buy up all the copies of the Financial Times in the shop and use those.

 And just as a head up, Christmas next year is on 25^th December. Put it in your diary now.

Great photos by nate steiner and dichohecho over on Flickr.

I love this time of year, but it does cause me some stress. I always make a proper birthday cake for MGG’s birthday, and have worked my way through a few cake decorating books. I’m no expert, whatsoever, but prepared to give it a go. So these five are a combination of ones I’ve used so far, and ones I always look at and think, maybe, one day!

1. No Time Party Cakes – I started with this one, loved the title, thought this would be the book for me. I worked through a few, but by the time I got to the fairy castle (and what little girl isn’t going to ask for this at some point) I was beginning to think I had misunderstood the title. I think I came to the conclusion on quite a few it meant no time to do anything else! That said, the designs are great for kids, and if you don’t get too ambitious a good source.

An alternative to the caterpillar cake

2. 50 Easy Party Cakes – this is the one I’m working from today, in an attempt to replicate the cover cake, and I did a cake for someone else from here too. There is a great variety of cakes, and actually these have not been too bad at all. I really love the kitten and ball of wool, just waiting for a request for this one!

3. Celebrate With A Cake: A Step by Step Guide to Creating 15 Memorable Cakes - Dr T bought me this one, he obviously has greater faith in my abilities than I have in my own! It’s the next level up and I aspire to some of these, they are truly beautiful. Thankfully, I’d already done the castle before I got this book, and before MGG had seen it, as the one in this book is truly spectacular.

4. Romantic Cakes by Peggy Porschen – it feels like Peggy is the pinnacle of fabulous, pretty, romantic cake decorating, and these are really the sorts of cakes I fantasise about turning out for an afternoon tea on a sunny lawn. This book moves you from every romantic occasion, from Valentine’s Day through to full on wedding cakes, which I think is beyond where I’ll end up, but I like looking at the pictures and dreaming. If you are more competent, then I would guess either this book is already in your possession, or most definitely on a wish list somewhere! Drop more hints!

5. Seriously Naughty Cakes by Debbie Brown - just to show cakes are not just for kids, or weddings, these are saucy additions to the cake decorator’s art! From mooning out of cars through to cleavages to make Jordan jealous and topless sunbathing, this really will give you some interesting ideas. To be honest, I would think having a roly-poly stripagram cake may be better than the real thing turning up! Not one to leave around for the kiddies to pick up though. Not till they turn 18 maybe!

I get a bit better each year, and as I only pretty much practice once a year then it’s no surprise I’m not making really quick progress on improving! I will keep you posted on how the stable comes along. But if I post pictures of a train cake, you have your answer!

An alternative to the caterpillar cake

This one of two stressful, but finally rewarding, nights of the year: making MGG’s birthday cake. Of course I could just pop to Tesco and buy a cake, but it’s kind of a family tradition. My mum always made fabulous birthday cakes: windmills, flowers, fairies, teddy bears, treasure islands…all lovingly created.

I don’t really have my mum’s talent, but I have desire, and love, so put myself through it every year. And every year it’s worth it just for that first moment when MGG finally sees the finished product. This year, I’ll be producing the horses in the stable, as per the book cover. I’m sure there’ll be some entertainment value, so will let you see the process and results!

Wish me good luck!

Gadgets are go this Christmas!

I am not sure why, but there aren’t so many foodie gift lists come out of the UK, most seem to come out of the US. It’s possibly down to the fact they use the word more, but then I’m not sure what the English (UK) alternative is, as gourmet, epicure and gourmand always feel a little bit more elitist, a bit more out of reach. Anyway, whatever the linguistic differences, the list on Health.com was great, and here are my UK alternatives to their Ultimate Foodie Gift Guide.

1. I loved the idea of the Apple Tree to Be, a great gift for a keen gardener or allotment keeper, a healthy eater, or just for that person you never have a clue what to buy them. For a British alternative, try the Miniature Apple by Trees Direct or a Bramley Apple Tree from Trees2MyDoor, which would be a great gift for a cook or home baker.

2.Whilst I can see that this scrapes into a healthy foodie gifts on the basis of the health benefits of garlic, really the Chef’n Garlic Zoom is just a great gizmo for the kitchen. Given that it’s just under £8 on Amazon, it would make a great stocking filler for anyone really, even for a serious cook, just for a laugh. I would probably make this my top foodie gadget for under £10 this Christmas.

3. Not sure if the health benefits of gingerbread are well documented, but missing parts Gingerbread Men may make you laugh, which is good for your health. Your gingerbread man could end up headless before you get to him, but at least you’ll know he’s “armless”. Sorry, bit early for panto, but cute gift for kids and homebakers. I love that these are called ABC Cookie Cutters, as in already been chewed!

4. Sadly, I can’t find a UK source for the Ebelskiver Filled-Pancake Pan, which is a real shame. These are apparently a real delicacy in their native Denmark, and they look delightful. Should you be passing a branchof Williams Sonoma anytime soon, they have a great one. The rest of us, well, we’ll have to campaign for Williams Sonoma to open up over here! We’ve got Anthropologie now, surely this should be the next import?

5. Perfect for coffee lovers with an eco-conscience, I Am Not a Paper Cup looks just like a proper take out cup, but can be used time and time again. Save the planet, still get good coffee. Perfect.

6. The Cook or Be Cooked Wii game is not available here in the UK. Buy a decent cookbook instead.

7. Growing your own herbs is brilliant and so worthwhile. There are all kinds of options for this, from pretty windowsill growing versions, through to the high tec approach of the Aero Garden. What seeds you add in is up to you.

8. The lunchskins are not available in the UK, but the principle of using less plastic at lunchtime is good. I love the bright coloured tiffin tin that John Lewis have, which would allow you to have several lovely courses at lunchtime without them getting mixed up.

9. The Breville Smart Oven looks like a perfect bachelor pad gadget, and lots of pre-settings mean it’s perfect for non-cooks and gadget geeks alike. Again, not available here yet, so maybe one to add to Santa’s list for next year.

10. I like the sound of The Pioneer Woman Cooks, a cookbook from self-proclaimed accidental country girl, Ree Drummond. Cook up Cowboy Calzones and Cheese Grits for a very, very different take on Christmas lunch.

11. This is something I could do with, as I always get the amount wrong so I would be grateful for a spaghetti measure. The Joseph Joseph one is funky looking and neat, and a good gift for under £10.

12. For seriously accurate cutting, dicing, slicing and julienning fruit and veg, then they need a good mandoline, and the De Buyer is the one recommended by Health.com. Four interchangeable blades give them the ability to even do waffle and crinkle cuts. Fancy!

13. I wish there was something like the EcoVine organic wine club membership but sadly not. The best bet in the UK is Vintage Roots, who specialise only in organic wine. Order them a bottle once a month.

14. Glow Gluten Free Cookies are not available here, but there are plenty of good gluten free goodies now on offer throughout the UK. M&S have a whole gluten-free hamper this Christmas, which would be great for those who don’t normally get such tasty treats. Or try Gower Cottage for gluten free brownies, chocolate loveliness without the gluten!

So, the term healthy has perhaps been applied a bit loosely, but I really like a lot of these ideas. Worth adding to your own Christmas wishlist, or help solve your gift buying problems for difficult foodies! Happy shopping!

What trends does your crystal ball show?

Back in January I wrote a post on what I thought would be the big trends in food, and it’s interesting to look back and see whether any of it came to pass, whether the crystal ball gazing was any good! Here goes:

1. A return to home-made goodies – I think we can safely say this one really took hold over the year, with just about everyone seeming to be busy making jam and cakes. The Tefal Electric Jam Maker seemed to be the upmarket gizmo to help everyone take part in the jam making bonanza, but you were just as likely to find us raiding hedgerows and recycling old jars into new jams.  A Lakeland or John Lewis bag became the new It bag.  Allotment gluts were turned into all manner of jams, pickles, relishes and chutney. We may all have enough for the year ahead! But I reckon this one will run for a bit longer yet!

2. We’d all be feeling very nostalgic – I think recession always makes us nostalgic, and there’s been lots of different examples. The whole M&S 125 year anniversary has seen us looking at designs from the 50s, which has actually ended up looking very fresh now. Nostalgic sweets have apparently seen massive sales growth, as we all craved small treats, ditching expensive artisan chocolate (at least occasionally) for the delights of fizzy cola bottles and sherbet pips. There was even a campaign to stop them changing the packaging of Sherbet Fountains. And the endless march of the cupcakes feeds into the same trend. Will it continue? Maybe, or maybe we will move into a more future looking phase of new cooking.

3. We’ll be be shopping local and real – I am hoping this is a continuing trend, and I think there are signs that it will. The ever-growing number of farmer’s markets, local food festivals, a general rise of interest in great food…all of these good signs that we can begin to really get behind British food, and hopefully take a chink out of the dominance of the big boys in the food chain.

4. It’ll all be about the food – My take on this was that this possibly wasn’t going to be the year of molecular gastrononmy, smears and foams, as we’d all be too busy chowing down on shepherd’s pie and treacle tart. I’m not sure. I think comfort food, nursery food, real British food has been huge, but sous vide seems to have really come to the forefront during the course of the year. I think it may still count as being all about the food though, as the method really maintains the integrity of the ingredients. We had roast beef at the Hinds Head at Bray the other week that was cooked this way, and it was fabulous. Yet to go very mainstream, but 2010 may be the year it does. We’ll see.

5. Good honest kit – it was going to be about investing in one really good piece of kit that would last, rather than buying lots of stuff that doesn’t get used much or that is cheap and cheerful but that breaks really quickly. I think that’s why things like the KitchenAid mixer and Mason Cash mixing bowls have been really popular, things that will really stand the test of time.

So, I think it wasn’t a bad piece of fortune telling on the food front. If only I was this good at predicting lottery numbers. Big question, aside from Saturday’s numbers, is what food trends lie ahead for us foodies in 2010?

Fabulous photo by Richard Lamb Photography.

Be careful what you try to wrap up!

A few people have been looking for ideas on how to put their own hampers together, which I think is a great idea. You get to really personalise to the gift recipient’s own tastes, and you can spend what you want to. Here’s some thoughts on ideas for different themes:

For the tea lovers

You could pack into a teapot, or generous mug, all kinds of tea paraphernalia. I’ve already written about the lovely teas from Bellevue Tea, and these would look attractive in a hamper. Whittard have good tea paraphernalia, like a tea infuser or even a tea bag squeezer, not to mention unusual loose teas. Another option for containing all your gifts, or as an add on, is a tea caddy. I like the bright Union Jack one from Emma Bridgewater, or try John Lewis if you want more traditional looking caddies. And you should probably add some lovely biscuits or cake, just to set up the perfect tea drinking treat.

For the BBQ Lover

Assuming that you are not going to pack this inside a Weber BBQ, we’ll think smaller but still useful. If you want an unusual book, I highly recommend Extreme BBQ, definitely one for the enthusiast. I would consider some good sauces and spices, like the chilli sauces from Gringley Gringo, and I really like the spices and seasonings from Steenburgs. I would think of adding in some of the unusual things like the Indian Fish Rub, just for a change.  They are bound to need good tongs, and perhaps an oven glove. And then you could add something like bottles of ketchup, a squeezy tomato dispenser, and maybe the madness that is the condiment gun!

For the cake baker

You could wrap all this up in a cake tin, although I don’t suggest the popular caterpillar cake tin for this, too many bumps! I do love silicone cases, both for ease of use and for lovely colours, like the heart shaped ones from Lakeland. All bakers will need more wooden spoons, and you could also add in things like cookie cutters, sprinkles and sugars. I really like Splat  who have more of everything than I could ever need! You could also add cake liners, doilies and paper cake cases. This will be a really pretty looking gift.

For the first time foodie

This could be for a foodie in the making, or someone about to leave home for the first time. This isn’t about all the big bits of equipment, more the things you need to help make cooking easier. I would put things in like wooden spoons and measuring spoons, a kitchen timer and an appropriate apron (I still really like the many unique choices at Not On the High Street). You could even go for bales of tea towels and dish cloths, but I would also add some fun stuff like a good beginners cookbook. For students, I would recommend From Pasta to Pancakes, written by a student who loved to cook.

Just four ideas to get you going, a few more to follow pre Christmas. I would say let your imagination run wild, and think of using part of the gift as the container for everything else. Do just remember that you have got to wrap the thing, so don’t make it too awkward a shape!

Photo of one awkward shape to wrap up by harryalverson over on Flickr.