This year I have decided to make a lot of home-made foodie presents. Whether this is going to turn out to be more or less cost-effective than if I actually bought the presents in the first place, is another matter entirely.
Here is a list of what will be going down in the kitchen (Click link for recipes):
Sea Salt Butter Caramels as seen on The Baker Chick.
Buttermilk Bacon Pralines as seen on Framed Cooks.
Microwave Peanut Brittle as seen on Blue-Eyed Bakers.
I might dip the peanut brittle in melted dark chocolate once it’s cooled but we’ll see how much time I have.
Roast almond, peanut and pistachio cranberry nut brittle as seen on What Katie Ate.
Turtle Candies as seen on as She Wears Many Hats.
I recommend following ALL of the above blogs as they have really great mouth-watering recipes and just drool-worthy photos.
Now, some of these recipes do ask for light corn syrup which is not that easy to get hold of in the UK. I was lucky as my partner recently was in the US and he brought me some home.
Don’t despair though, as a few American Grocery based online stores such as The Stateside Candy Co. (which also has three real stores) do stock dark and light corn syrup, Hooray!
Usually I find the cost of American groceries over here astronomical (I’m looking at you £7.99 box of Lucky Charms) but The Stateside Candy Co. sells a bottle of light or dark corn syrup for £3.99 which I reckon ain’t too shabby.
Somehow, I need to make all of these edible goodies presentable. So far I’ve bought cellophane bags from Lakeland, ribbon from The Ribbon Girl and I’ve also managed to get wax paper (for wrapping the caramels in) from ebay.
For inspiration I check out Marthastewart.com for presentation ideas as well as more gift ideas.
I’m going to try to take pictures of all these D.I.Y goings on and post them on here. I won’t however be posting pictures of my kitchen before and after nor my face as I become increasingly frantic and flustered trying to get everything done in time.
Any tips and ideas would be much appreciated especially if they are time saving and stress reducing!
Love
Madame Squirrel
The Musings Of Madame Squirrel 