Have you ever considered purchasing a gourmet food gift? In many cases it can be the perfect gift. When you are stumped and just can't decide what to give, when the receiver is one of those people who has everything, when your recipient is someone you don't know very well, then offering a gift with a variety of flavors and choices can really fit the bill. An added bonus to creating your own gourmet gift plate, or basket, or bowl, or even a small mug is that you gave it your personal touch. It is so much nicer than buying a gift basket off the shelf.
When deciding what to collect you can opt for healthier choices or work with a theme. Here are some cute ideas:
Candy Boxes
Microwave Popcorn
Coca-cola in Glass Bottles
Hot Cocoa
Candy Canes
Decorated Cookies
Champagne
Champagne Glass
Candles
Chocolate Truffles
Cupcake
Dried Fruits
Nuts
Dried Vegetables
Spreadable Cheese
Deli Meats
Crackers
Pet Treats
Pet Toys
Collar and Coat
Clean up Bags
It is really simple to place your items decoratively, and wrap up your gift either by using plastic cling wrap and for even more fun try shrink wrap! Shrink wrap gives your gift a beautiful, professional finishing touch and it can be purchased in different sizes. This is a great item to keep on hand with your gift wraps and cards. In my video I had not planned ahead for this gift, so I used plastic cling wrap from Costco. This plastic wrap if very clingy, and works well in a pinch, but I would have preferred to finish this plate in the video with a shrink wrap.
For Easter I was tasked with bringing a fruit salad for our family dinner. I like fruit salad, but I often feel like a large bowl of cut up fruit needs a little something, maybe a bit of sugar or honey, some fresh mint is always a nice addition and I could certainly mix in some yogurt. This year, however I had just started a new meal plan and I wanted to keep the fruit free from extra calories. I had never made fruit flowers or tried to create a fruit display so I know if I can pull this off, then anyone can have equally great results.
I have been a fan of Mason jars as décor and serving dishes for a long time now. They are rugged and hold up to abuse. They can go into boiling water and into the freezer and they do not break easily. For these bouquets, that would require transport, canning jars worked out very well. Also, I had plenty on hand and could make several small bouquets to put around the table. I started with creating the concepts so I would know what fruit to buy and how much. Grapes gave me a good base for the “soil” and would hold the skewers of fruit solidly, so they made a great foundation. Slices of watermelon added beautiful color and pineapple worked well in slices, also. I chose not to use apples or bananas because they oxidize to quickly and the color would not look good, but the apples would be an option if you spritzed them or soaked them with lemon water. Strawberries made the perfect rose.
I added blueberries, blackberries and raspberries as accents and I specifically made one flower with loads of blackberries to reserve for my dad…he’s a big fan of blackberries!
I was not sure how these would go over and WOW…they were a huge hit. As a crafter, I find that many times I am hard on myself and my work and look for perfection, but my family only saw beautiful displays of fruit and took great joy in eating them up. Lesson learned…just make them, they will be loved!!
Creating this video was a difficult process. I went through several variations of how to heat the beeswax onto the fabric and most were messy and required too much dedicated equipment or supplies.
As a Beekeeper I have work with beeswax a little bit. I have separated wax from honey. I have purified wax to store for future projects. I have had wax in all colors from the purest white that only comes from brand new hive boxes to rich golden hues from matures hives. Sadly, to this day, I have not made candles. I have all of the equipment and I will make them eventually and I am sure it will end up on video for your viewing pleasure.
When my oldest daughter showed me Bee's wax Wrappers and told me about using them to store food, acting as a reusable replacement for plastic wrap and to cover bowls for food storage my first thoughts were how I would make these. My secondary thoughts were how I would keep my kitchen clean while I made these.
I scoured the internet and saw several methods and got to work. I bought aluminum trays so I would not permanently damage my cookies sheets and tried melting the wax onto the cloth in the oven. The was didn’t spread well, and I felt like I had to watch it like a hawk. Wax has a fairly low flame point and I didn’t want to start a fire. The oven method just made me nervous. My next attempt was to use an embossing heat gun to melt the beeswax, but it just blew the wax around too easily before melting it and again it did not spread well.
The iron and parchment paper method that I show on the video, on top of a folded towel was so easy, clean and effective! The wax spread, the mess was contained to sheets of parchment (which can be saved and reused) and the towel was there to soften the work surface and also catch any wax that may possible leak from the paper. I started with less wax and I could easily add more, so leaking didn’t really happen. It was controlled, simple and fast.
Keep these wrappers in mind for gifts. They last about one year, so like a dish towel, a hostess can always use some more. Plus, if you look for Fat Quarters in your fabric stores quilting department you will find a range of fun fabrics to match anyone’s theme or décor.
I designed the Forget-Me-Not Easter Egg Sugar Cookies to be a wonderful beginner sugar cookie project. Royal Icing is not for the meek—there is a learning curve—but I assure you it is not a steep curve. With patience and practice your cookies will start out a little rough, but drastically improve as you work on your skills.
There are many nuanced tips that make a huge difference in the outcome of your icing. For example, the icing bag is easy to hold and squeeze when the icing consistency is correct and when you hold from the back and squeeze toward the tip. Unfortunately most beginners squeeze near the tip and the icing oozes from the back of the bag. The reusable bag ties from Wilton are large rubber bands that work well when this is a problem for yourself, or when you are teaching junior decorators. Your icing will stay put in the bag and only flow out of the tip until you have this under control. I host an annual Family Cookie Baking Day at my home and always include Christmas sugar cookies with bags of icings in all the festive colors as well as dishes of sprinkles, so these bag ties really keep the icing neat and make it fun for everyone at all skill levels.
Outlining is another area where the right technique is easy, but so important. Touch the icing tip down onto the cookie and begin squeezing the bag gently while you lift the tip back off of the cookie and start moving. Allow the icing to “drop” into place and you will have a better line that is easier to place. Holding the icing bag in one hand while you direct with a fingertip from your other hand will bring balance and precision. Flooding the outline is very easy, try to fill with less gaps and it takes less effort to finish and have a smooth surface. Outlining and flooding works best when the icing is the right consistency and recognizing the consistency is also going to improve with practice.
Adding the flowers is really easy, just make even and evenly spaced dots of icing and use a toothpick or pointy tool to drag the icing into petal and leaf shapes. I use a pointed tool from my Quilling kit, it wasn’t really designed for decorating but it works perfectly.
Every year for Christmas I host a “Family Baking Day” where I make dozens of sugar cookies and prepare colorful tubes of royal icing and we have a great deal of fun creating beautiful Christmas Sugar Cookies. I have had a bit of practice working with sugar cookie dough and royal icing and I have had my failures and my successes, so this puts me in a pretty good position to direct my family members in making their cookie designs.
Our family baking day is a two-part day. First I ask each person (or family group) to bring prepared, but not yet baked, cookie dough. This way no one is mixing dough during our party. I pull out all of the baking sheets and set up a loading, cooling and finished cookie station in the kitchen. Second, I set up a large table with my baked sugar cookie cutouts, bags of icing and as many colorful sprinkles and toppings as I can round up and I create a creative “arts and crafts with cookies” area.
It used to be just the ladies, and we would send the guys to the other room to watch football, but slowly they would start creeping in and now they are equally involved and there’s no game on the television. We just put “Elf” in the DVD player and set it on repeat. How is it that we don’t get tired of that movie?!?
I have some very talented family members who jump right in and create beautiful cookies and I have others who as less artistically inclined. With simple guidelines, my non-baking and non-decorating family members have created some beautiful cookies, and I find that having a few tried and true techniques will help ensure their success and create a feeling of accomplishment.
At the end of the day, I served a nice light salad, usually with a rotisserie chicken chunked up and tossed in, to give us a little protein boost and try to counter all of the cookies that we eat.
In this video I will show you just a couple of easy techniques and a few quick tips on how to hold the icing bag and direct the tip.