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Okay, so the transit strike is screwing up your holiday shopping. It's time to get creative. Through the magic of Fresh Direct and/or a short walk to your local market/bodega/grocery/gourmet food shop, (and hopefully with the luxury of telecommuting) you can make last-minute gifts for those pesky folks still left on the list.
Every year around this time, Gothamist goes a little crazy in the kitchen with vats of butter, sugar, corn syrup, almonds and chocolate, whipping it up into batches of butter crunch toffee to give as gifts to friends and family. We're a little behind this year, so we're hoping to find a little time between now and the end of the week to make the toffee, along with a few other homemade treats, to bring along to our holiday festivities. We're also going to try a few new things this year, including some spiced mixed nuts, infused vodka (from the Vodka Cookbook) and if we have time, perhaps even the lemon gumdrops featured in Sunday's Times magazine.
Epicurious has a few great ideas for homemade gifts, including granola (we might add that to the list as well -- might counteract all that butter and sugar), as does allrecipes.com, which even provides instructions for brownie and cookie mixes in a jar that are better (and cheaper) than the cutesy ones you can buy at Bed and Bath. So never fear, strike or no strike, you can wrap up your last few gifts from the comfort of your own kitchen.
What homemade gifts are you cooking up this year?
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Three words: Alton Brown Fruitcake
Just to broaden your comments about last-minute holiday shopping. MaxDelivery.com also delivers homemade Valrhona chocolates, holiday cookie tins & many foodie gifts under $30. Folks can order as late as Christmas Eve and all items are delivered in under an hour.
The Mommy-Livvy Bakery has been up and running since the weekend (gotta gift 'em fresh!). I think the oven was on for 9 hours straight. So far my daughter and I have 6 tupperwares full of Molasses crinkles, pecan tassies, cocoa Reese's cup cookies, lemon bars and classic chocolate chip. My husband says that he's going to throw me into a detox tank ("Hello, My name is Sooz and I am powerless over my kitchen aid)and make me learn to love Pillsbury slice'n bakes. Yeah, like he's complaining. Last year (right around this time) I blew out the glowbar on my oven.
Have since learned to pace myself. Tonight's project? Cashew Butter cookies with chocolate drizzle!!! Gotta love cookies, man. Give someone a cellophane bag of 'em and it's instant love.
I made the NY Times lemon gumdrops last night and I gotta say, the concept is good but the recipe is too vague. For success, I recommend getting a candy/deep frying thermometer and Alton Brown's recipe for "Acid Jellies" on the Foodtv.com website (also check out the user reviews there, they are helpful). My NYT gumdrops, although lemony, are too sticky and kinda brown. Yummy, but not really giftworthy.
Thanks for letting me know! Time to cross those off my list. I'm going with my traditional butter crunch toffee, the epicurious granola, and some spiced nuts as a gift bag trio.