(Chocolate Pistachio Fudge)

Every year Christmas feels more like one of those anxiety dreams about Christmas where it’s suddenly the day itself and you haven’t done any shopping or packed for the airport and you’re running late and although Christmas is ostensibly about family and giving and eating and tradition it really is above all about our perception of time, what’s changed, what hasn’t, who is no longer here, who you no longer hear from, how unprepared you are and how it was only just last Christmas I swear and how much time has passed since you were a marginally less jaded child. Time, that indefatigable brute!

But it’s also about eating. And before we lose sight of that, let’s leap into the 2023 edition of a favourite tradition of mine for the past thirteen years, something we can all count on, that no anxiety dream can rend asunder: my Annual HungryandFrozen Edible Gift Recipe Round-Up! With EIGHTY recipes this year!

(Kūmara chocolate button cookies)

Each December I gather a list of recipes from my prior blog posts that I believe would make ideal edible gifts, in case you want prompting in that direction, despite having the entire internet already at your disposal. In the spirit of consistency and tradition, and also in the spirit of retaining my own sanity in these trying times, I’ve kept a lot of the text in this post the same as in previous years — there’s only so many ways you can launch into this thing after thirteen goes at it, and I appreciate your understanding.

(Rhubarb Fruit Mince)

Christmas is a pretty fraught time of year as it is, and inescapable even if you’re not particularly invested — a bit like that primary school exercise where we inexplicably had to look after an egg for a week without breaking it, Christmas is a responsibility handed to you by a greater authority, fragile, and kind of wasteful in the grander scheme of things. But it’s happening, and if, like me, you’re someone who finds comfort and calm in cooking, then focussing your energy on making delicious edible gifts for people can reign in some of that generalised seasonal tension. Make a list, check it twice, work out which tier each person is on — are they worth putting in the effort to boil sugar? — pour yourself a small glass of port (I strongly favour a late-night port this time of year) or a fruity cup of tea, and fill the kitchen with the scent of cinnamon and melting chocolate while lights twinkle encouragingly in your peripheral vision.

(Marble Heart Cookies)

I hear what you’re saying — Christmas, in this economy? With a repulsive supermarket duopoly who — barely metaphorically — suck our blood from our necks and then sell it back to us at $37 per kilo? Yeah, I don’t have the answer, and between the ludicrous supermarket prices, time, electricity, storage and wrapping, homemade edible gifts aren’t necessarily cheap, and there’s no moral superiority in making your own jam. It is undeniably delightful — but if homemade is too strenuous, stick with the food concept and do your Christmas shopping at the supermarket. I say this as someone whose entire gift haul could happily come from their bloodthirsty aisles, but consider:

• Nice chocolates — even mid chocolate is still chocolate
• A jar of fancy peanut butter or nut butter
• A beguiling jam or three
• A jar of Biscoff
• An interestingly-shaped or glamorously Italian dried pasta
• A jar of good curry paste
• A nice bottle of olive oil, alongside which you could add a promising-looking vinegar
• Olives, sun-dried tomatoes, small fish, kimchi, other jarred and preserved items
• There are some incredibly fancy crackers on the market these days
• A box of elegant carbonated beverages
• Obvious, but wine and beer are always well-received by those who want
  them

It can be as simple as just buying food you know someone happily eats a lot of. They love beans? Get them beans! They love noodles? Buy them a week’s worth! I guarantee they’ll be pleased. Basically, we cannot escape capitalism, but giving an edible gift of any kind has so many upsides: it’s delicious, it has immediate practical application, it will eventually cease taking up space in the receiver’s house, and it’s a simple way to show the people you love that they’re worth a little time and consideration and deliciousness for its own sake.

(Chocolate-Nut Fudge Candies)

I realise to heaps of people Christmas is — quite reasonably — just another day of the week! But there will be some point in your life when giving a gift is required, and almost all the recipes listed below work beautifully year-round (though I personally can’t eat candy canes out of season.)

(Coconut Oat Chilli Crisp)

Two caveats: some of these recipes are from absolute years ago, as will happen when you have a sixteen-year-old food blog, but while details and contexts and locations and motivations have changed, the deliciousness remains constant. Also, I feel like it’s worth noting anything that could melt should be stored in the fridge rather than under the tree for as long as possible.

(Rhubarb, Raspberry, and Cardamom Jam)

Category One: Things In Jars

That eternal receptacle! A glass jar makes the humblest of ingredients and least of efforts look welcoming and exertional. Things in Jars are ideal gifts for your most marginally tolerable of coworkers or the most highly specific loves of your life. For added personal flair — though this could just be my neurological predisposition for over-explaining — I suggest including a gift tag with recommendations on ways to use the contents of the jar. I used to be cavalier about the sterility of said jars, but after living at home I’ve been sufficiently old-wives-taled into respectful fear for botulism. I like to think that a jar fresh from the dishwasher is as close to sterile as you can hope for; otherwise, I’d consult the internet (and with the state of google these days, while I’m complaining, it’s worth either going straight to youtube or adding “reddit” after your search term) for wise counsel on the process.

(Roasted Plum Harissa)

Savoury:

1. Caramelised Onion Butter (vg)
2. Coconut Oat Chilli Crisp (vg)
3. Corn and Chilli Relish (vg)
4. Cranberry Sauce (vg, this recipe is super easy, and I make it every year to have with Christmas dinner)
5. Dukkah (vg, perhaps accompany with a nice bottle of olive oil)
6. Marinated Tamarillos (vg)
7. Matcha Mayonnaise
8. Olive Tapenade (vg)
9. Peach Balsamic Barbecue Sauce (vg)
10. Preserved Limes (vg)
11. Roasted Chickpea Butter (vg)
12. Roasted Plum Harissa (vg)
13. Sake Pickled Radishes (vg)
14. Spiced Peaches (vg)
15. Taco Pickles (vg)
16. Tomato Relish (vg)
17. Vegan Gochujang Bokkeum (vg, if you know someone who likes chilli I cannot recommend this highly enough)

(Berry Chia Seed Jam)

Sweet

18. Berry Chia Seed Jam (vg)
19. Black Salted Caramel Sauce (vg)
20. Cranberry Curd
21. Honeycomb Sauce
22. Lemon Curd (vg)
23. Orange Confit (vg)
24. Pecan Cookie Granola Butter (vg)
25. Rhubarb Fig Jam (vg)
26. Rhubarb Fruit Mince (vg, very easy and delicious and surprisingly easy to find ways to use)
27. Rhubarb, Raspberry and Cardamom Jam (vg)
28. Salted Pineapple Caramel Sauce (vg)

Granola

29. Apple Cinnamon Granola (vg)
30. Buckwheat, Cranberry and Cinnamon Granola (vg)
31. Caramel Walnut Granola (vg)
32. Strawberry Jam Granola (vg)
33. The Best Granola (vg, the others are still good, but it’s named for a reason)

(Christmas Star Cookies)

Category Two: Baked Goods

They’re baked. They’re good. Biscuits and cookies are sturdy and durable, but don’t rule out a fruity or molasses-preserved cake, perhaps wrapped in baking paper and then brown paper — the ones below keep immensely well. And at this busy time of year, having something to slice and eat with a cup of tea or a snifter of whatever weird liqueur you can find in the back of the cupboard is nothing if not a stroke of good fortune. Each year I get enamoured with one particular cookie recipe and bake it into the ground, this year it’s the Kūmara Chocolate Button Cookies which I’ve made a double batch of once or twice a week ever since blogging about them, and so I eagerly nudge you towards them as well; but wherever you land on this list you’re in for a treat.

(The Very Best Christmas Cake)

Cookies:

34. Chewy Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies (vg)
35. Christmas Star Cookies (vg)
36. Chocolate Rosemary Cookies (vg)
37. Coconut Macaroons
38. Dark Rum Tahini Chocolate Walnut Cookies (vg)
39. Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits (vg)
40. Kūmara Chocolate Button Cookies (vg) (I have made these roughly five million times this year, no exaggeration)
41. Marble Heart Cookies (vg)
42. Nigella’s Granny Boyd’s Biscuits
43. Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
44. Pecan Sandies (vg)
45. Pistachio Toffee Cookies (vg, and gorgeous, but the toffee softens after a couple of days, so make them closer to the date of giving)
46. Rum + Pecan Cookies (vg)
47. Small Batch Peanut Mocha Cookies (vg, ideal if you also only have a small batch of gifting to do)
48. Triple Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies
49. Viv’s Crackers (vg, good to make anyway for general nibbling)
50. Vanilla Chocolate Macarons (vg, high effort, high reward, but this isn’t for people you feel indifference towards)
51. White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Cakes:

52. Blackberry White Pepper Gingerbread (vg)
53. Ginger-Molasses Loaf Cake (vg, I have made dozens and dozens of these, and it’s excellent with treacle instead of molasses)
54. Dark Chocolate Molasses Fruit Loaf (vg, a variation on the above, and a great way to get that Christmas Cake energy without as much effort)
55. The HungryandFrozen Christmas Cake
56. The Very Best Vegan Christmas Cake (vg)

(Candy Cane Vodka and Forty Four)

Category Three: Novelty, No-Bake Sweets, and Sugary Chaos

The reason for the season: sugar and booze, as the song goes. Whether it’s dissolving candy canes in bottom-shelf vodka or flavour pairing cardamom with malteasers, sugar is the true reason for the season. And since dentists wildly overcharge us for their service, you might as well make them really earn it. Note: even with overproof vodka the passionfruit and mandarin liqueurs probably won’t be ready in time for Christmas; unless you can find out-of-season feijoas there’s no point trying that recipe either, but either give the intended receiver an IOU, which wouldn’t personally bother me in the slightest, but results may vary out there — or save it for their birthday — or next Christmas.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate:

57. Candy Cane Bark (vg)
58. Chocolate Caramel Rice Bubble Slice (vg)
59. Chocolate Pistachio Fudge (vg, incredibly easy, and it’s a Nigella recipe so you can really trust it)
60. Chocolate-Nut Fudge Candies (vg)
61. Homemade Bounty Bars (VG)
62. No-bake Cookie Dough Truffles (vg)
63. Pecan Pie Crunch Slice (vg)
64. Salted Chocolate Cashew Butter Slice (vg)
65. Three-ingredient Chocolate Caramel Hearts (vg)
66. Vegan White Chocolate (vg)
67. Vegan Cookies and Cream White Chocolate (vg)
68. Crunchie Bar Slice
69. Brown Sugar, Cardamom and Malteaser Fudge

(Raspberry Rainbow Slab)

Candy Candy Candy

70. Almond Butter Toffee (vg)
71. Moonshine Biffs (like homemade Milk Bottles)
72. Old-Fashioned Fudge (vg)
73. Raspberry Rainbow Slab (vg)
74. Toasted Honey Marshmallows

I’ll drink to that:

75. Candy Cane Vodka (it’s almost literally potable!) (vg)
76. Coffee-Orange Liqueur aka Forty Four (vg)
77. Homemade Feijoa Vodka (vg)
78. Homemade Mandarin Liqueur (vg)
79. Homemade Passionfruit Liqueur (vg, the superior of the three, if you only have one bottle of vodka’s worth of energy, but they’re all good)
80. Old-Fashioned Lemonade Cordial (vg)

I did have aspirations of Christmas menu plans and prompts as well but that might be a story for another day or I’ll never press publish on this in time for it to be useful. I hope it is useful, moreover I hope you all have yourself a merry little December, as much as is feasibly possible right now, and with as much good food as you want and need.

And if you keep a relatively small circle, there are still neighbours, the postal service, the people who work at the establishments you frequent, and any number of people nearby who might be cheered by a jar or box of something in their letterbox with a friendly note attached. But even just you, alone, are reason enough to bake a cake.

music lately:

You Oughtta Know by Alanis Morrisette; I haven’t heard Jagged Little Pill for quite some time and then found myself listening to this song about seven times in a row on loop today, something in the panting guitar chords in the chorus and that rippling tremolo and the way she wails “it’s not fair” sent me into a kind of trance and I kept skipping back to the start. She was one of my very first live concerts back in 1996 at the Supertop (RIP) and while this sounds immensely 90s — and why shouldn’t it! — it still carries that same seismic effect of being run over by a barge on rollerskates.

In a Rut, by The Ruts, the kind of perfect song that, upon writing it, you could self-satisfactorily never do anything more for the rest of your life except loudly resting on your laurels.

Maria, from West Side Story, sung by Sarah Vaughan. The way she slides from operatic soprano to rich, lower register — the vibrato! — the acting! — the chic decision to keep it as a song about a woman!

Supervixens, by A.R Kane. I adore this billowing, bewildered song that appears to be building around the musicians as they go along, like the pixelated background landscape graphics in a 90s computer game.