The Christmas Hamper Thread

GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!

we always make a salt dough decoration for the hampers and use it as a tag too!

Oooh I love this. Wondering if I could do small initials to tell the hampers apart, then the recipients could use at Christmas tree decorations?

exactly what we did last year! painted with poster paint and then i used glitter pva glue as a sealant!

Me and my daughter are thinking of making a hamper this year, full of homemade and our 'traditional' Christmas foods as we don't know where we'll be spending Christmas day (at my mum's if still pregnant, at home if the baby is born and the 3rd option I can't bring myself to mention) so I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

I made hampers last year with Christmas chutney, chilli jam, cranberry jelly/jam and florentines!

I impressed myslef with the florentines so im definatly making them again this year!!

Those stained glass stars sound brilliant.

I make shortbread and use a tree shaped cutter, put choc chips in as 'baubles' and when out the oven and still hot dip in 100's and 1000's as to create sparkley baubles. Very effective!

Actual genius!

I'm going to try this, and use green food colouring for the shortbread!

Green is a great idea, can't believe I never thought of that

Ooh Missus S how cute are they?!

I'm planning a hamper for a good friend of ours whose birthday is start of December. He's a real foodie but they've been going through some financial difficulties recently, so I want to get him some real 'treat' type foods e.g. nice balsamic vinegar, posh cheese etc, but the homemade things I'm considering are infused olive oils, flavoured sea salt and "sun" dried tomatoes.

Missus S they are fab!! Have to try them this year!

PJ xx

This thread has inspired me to get baking which is never a good thing.

I shall flash the carnage soon!

I've made some blackberry vodka and raspberry gin, can't wait to have a sample before bottleing and labeling (well it would be rude not to!)

Last Xmas a friend made the stained glass window'y things that you mention inside a shortbread - they were fab - looked awesome!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/stainedglasswindowbi_87505

Last year, I received some Fudge in my Xmas hamper, homemade, which was delicious!! So that is on my list this year. Am also looking for a funky alternative to mince pies!

Those tree shaped biscuits are cute!! I really would love to make a hamper but I'm always worried it won't be very good. How far in advance to you cook/bake things an how much do you find you spend per hamper?

That reminds me, I made a peanut butter fudge but you have to like peanut butter as is very peanutty buttery. Melts in your mouth! Also a good malteser cake (fridge cake not a sponge) and choc truffles nom nom

Missus..... Malteaser cake recipe please, please,, please......... ?

How to make Chocolate Malteser Cake: Quantity Ingredients 85g (3oz) Butter 2 tbspn Golden syrup 2 tbspn Cocoa powder 170g (6oz) Digestives, crushed 1 x 175g Bag Maltesers, half crushed & half left whole   Method 1. Melt the butter and golden syrup in small heavy base saucepan. 2. Stir in the cocoa powder, digestives, and crushed Maltesers until well combined. 3. Allow to cool slightly, then stir through the whole Maltesers. 4. Line a 1lb Loaf tin with Cling film, pour in the mixture and press down well, but be careful not to crush the whole Maltesers. 5. Chill until set. About 2 hours. 6. Slice the chocolate malteser cake into chunky fingers and serve.  

Thanks Missus - I have put the ingredients on the online shop, may make one for H's little homecoming! ?

Super easy, cant go wrong!

Personally not very far in advance, usually about a week or so. It really depends on what you put in though. For example I like to give flavoured olive oils to my PIL as they love them, but I won't make them as I'm petrified of botulism, so I buy them in advance from Waitrose. I made flavoured vodka last year which went down a treat and had to start that about a month in advance. We get the Book People at work and they're usually good for expensive-looking books which in reality only cost a couple of quid, so I'll usually pop one of those in too.

I probably end up spending about £10-£15 per hamper but mine are fairly large and if I made a few more bits myself the price would really come down. I give one hamper to my in-laws and one to my BIL and his girlfriend, then I just do a selection of treats to take to my family too.

What do you use as your 'hamper' people?

Last year i luckily found a gorgeous huge picnic basket in a chairty shop for a fiver, otherwise similar in shops were £50!

Love these ideas.

And now I'm hungry..!

Last year I only made one hamper of bought goods, my brother is a foodie but can't really afford posh things, so I made an italian one with oils, spices, balsamic vinegar etc. I put in some oil dipping dishes and just put it in a covered cardboard box. I had got him another present though - this was just an extra!

For other people I didn't make big hampers, but extra bits to go in with gifts. I made Limoncello and rasperry vodka and I added a small bottle down the side of my gift bags. I made mince pies and cupcakes then my mum made me shortbread and truffles, and I made gift bags up to give to my team of guys at work.

This year I'll probably do the same with work and make them a bag of home baked goodies, then for my brother I'm doing a cheese hamper, with a slate cheese board, knife, and I'm going to make bacon jam and some sort of onion/tomato chutney.

I'm also going to have a go at making mini hamper sort of things. I've got gorgeous Christmas mugs so I'm going to fill with posh coffee/ hot chocolate then for the children I've seen snowman plastic cups so I'll make a variation on Snowman Soup for them. For the men in my family (so hard to buy for!) I'm going to do 'pots of gold' with gold themed sweeties and lotto tickets / scatch cards.

I made this chutney a couple of years ago - it was yummy

https://cranfieldsfoods.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/80/

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/kirsties-homemade-christmas/episode-guide/series-1

I just posted this on bt, we received one of these as a family gift which was really pretty and gave us something to do between Christmas and new year:http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/oxford/pdf/christmas_muffin_mix_recipe.pdf

So what sort of price range do you do for your hampers? We're considering doing it for PiL and my dad and step mum this year. Have decided against the christmas cakes though as the one i normally make is quite expensive.

I think with hampers it is sometimes difficult to estimate unless you know exactly what you are putting in. Do you have a budget for each of them? I agree Christmas cakes can be very expensive to make, lots of lovely alternatives that could be put together to make a nice hamper. I find that sometimes the actual packaging and basket is the most expensive part (I find that with my cupcakes too - the box is more than the cakes!)

What sort of thing are you planning on putting in it? Baking, Chutneys etc? The we could perhaps get a better idea on pricing.

Me personally I'm rubbish at working out prices of things - I just roughly would say if I was making tablet I would add up cost of condensed milk, sugar and butter which would maybe come to £4 ish then I'd get 8 portions of tablet from it. So 50p a bag, then the actual cello bag and ribbon may be another 10p. I don't count my time or cooking fuel etc.

Price wise depends on what you put in and how many youre doing! we did 3 last year, 2 for grandparents and one for parents and had home made stuff like fudge, shortbread, jam, individual fruit cakes, wine, home made decorations, bought crackers..the packaging is the most expensive!! think each one came to no more then £12

Just bumping this.

As an aside, the search function on this forum is absolute BOBBINS. Just searched in a variety of ways, I knew the exact title of this thread and used the search function and it came up with nothing at all!

Went to Google and typed in "The christmas hamper thread hitched saisi" and it came right up!

thank the lord for google, what DID we actually do without it!?

OOOH! We're doing hampers this year. Making one for my mum & stepdad, PIL, and the siblings-in-law & their spouses.

I found these gorgeous baskets in Wilkos that are perfect & only £15 for a set of 3!

We're putting two types of chutney, fudge, coconut ice, limoncello & gingerbread (all homemade) in, along with some posh biscuits for cheese. Might make some salt dough initials as well. Ace idea!