Hi, I am Christine Picheca, Online Food Editor with Canadian Living Magazine. Today, I wanted to show you, some of my personal tricks for holiday gifts giving. Every year people look for unique ideas to be giving gifts, at holiday time. You can give a gift card or bowl of wine but they are really generic. If you give something that is homemade, I think it is really personal and thoughtful way of giving gifts at holiday time. These are some really simple ideas that I'd love to share it with you today.
A gift from your kitchen, does not have to contain elaborate or costly ingredients. You want to give something that is original and the recipient may be would not already have in their pantry or on their shelf. This year I am making gifts with things that I already have in the kitchen or in the fridge. The first thing I want you to show you is a decketed Peanut Caramel Sauce. This is great to put over ice-cream, on top of a cake or use it as a dipping sauce, it is really delicious. Let us get started.
What you need is, one cup of granulated sugar, three tablespoons of water, a couple of drops of lemon juice, one cup of whipping cream, one-third cup of smooth peanut butter and one teaspoon of vanilla. To make the caramel sauce you want to combine the sugar, the water and a couple of drops of lemon juice in a medium size pot.
Bring the sauce to a boil swirling the pan, every once in a while. You boil this for about five to seven minutes until the sauce turns a nice deep golden brown. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the cream. The sauce is going to bubble up vigorously at this point. You put the sauce back on to low heat and stir the caramel until it dissolves into the sauce. Now you are going to add a third of a cup of peanut butter and a bit of vanilla.
Stir this all together and your sauce will be complete. Set it aside to cool. My sauce is cooled and it is ready to pack. For my peanut caramel sauce, I love saving all jam jars, because they are such pretty little shapes. Another great thing that you can find is little boxes and tins and jars at a dollar store, they are really great inexpensive find there. So let us get packing.
Make sure all the jars have been washed then fill them up, leaving a few centimeters at the top and seal them with a lid. Take some fabric wallpaper using a bowl that is few inches merge it around then the lid at the guide, cut out circles. Place this circle over the jar and finish it of with the ribbon. This sauce can be kept up to one week in the fridge.
I have also prepared Peanut Butter Truffles for this year's gift giving. These truffles combine five simple ingredients- milk chocolate, whipping cream, smooth peanut butter, vanilla and honey roasted peanut. These are really easy to make. Place each truffle into a mini muffin cup or a candy cup. Line the truffles up in the tin, make sure not to pack them too tightly or you will squash them. Cut out a piece of wax paper, the same size as the tin and place it on the top. If you like you can include a personalized recipe card, then tie a ribbon around it.
I love to make biscotti and this recipe is particularly delicious. It combines peanut, white chocolate and cranberries. My coffee loving friends love to get it as a gift and I always make extra for my holiday cookie party. You can see that I have to use paper containers to pack up the biscotti, tugged inside with tissue paper. I pick these up at the local craft store. I also like to include a recipe card. It is a gift that keeps on giving. And there you have it, three tasty peanuty homemade holiday gifts. To get this recipe and more visit peanutbureau.ca.
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