I was a long-time member of Craftster many moons ago, but mostly lurked for inspo - partly b/c of my own ‘performance anxiety.’ Taking the leap and posting A Thing I Did .
A major part of our holiday gift-giving is homemade baking and confectionary. Here some of the boxes (one large and one small) I put together this year.
I do lots of other crafty things, mostly fiber and textile related, with liberal sprinklings of paper, beads, and paint - but this is easy to share right now
Oh! I forgot about identifying the goods: mint surprise (the red and green sugared cookies), sour cream drops, pecan snowballs, turtle thumbprints, and gingersnaps.
Marshmallow flavours: vanilla, dark chocolate, orange, gingerbread, matcha, and peppermint.
Welcome! And yauuuuummmm… what awesome gifts! Everything looks delicious. Even a tiny sample of one of those things would be delightful to receive, but to open the box and see ALL these goodies … that’s holiday joy in it’s purest form.
I’ve always been intrigued by fancy homemade marshmallows, but I’ve never had any. Yours look delicious! You may have inspired me to try making some. How would you rate them in difficulty?
They are pretty simple, and pretty forgiving! Essentially, you’re blooming gelatin, adding very hot sugar syrup, and whipping the dickens out of it. There is a learning curve - overbeat, and your marshmallows can get tough, and may weep in storage, underneath and they may not set up quite as well - but at 20 min or so per batch (excluding setting time) and relatively low expense, it’s an affordable learning curve . Effort is greatly reduced with a stand mixer - a handheld will do the job just fine, but it’s hot work!
The first time I made marshmallow from scratch was with this recipe (they were delicious):
If you foray into adding spices/powders (like cocoa), read up; my first batch of cocoa marshmallows tasted delicious, but were pretty dense and chewier than expected. Next time, I followed a process that hydrated the cocoa, reduced liquid in the sugar syrup, etc and they came out much fluffier. I am still figuring out the best way to do matcha mallows; flavour was good on the ones I made, but the texture (for most of them) wasn’t quite right.
Hope this helps! I’m happy to help where I can, and there’s at least one excellent FB group dedicated to marshmallows too, if you end up wanting more info.
What bountiful boxes of yummy treats! You’ve some very lucky folks in your circle, that is for sure. I hope you’ll continue to share your other creations of all sorts!
Wait a second, you made those caramels?? I thought you knew that there were 12lbs worth because that’s what it said on the outside of the candy bags you bought. Wow! It all looks good, but realizing it’s all handmade, right down to the wrapped candies (which must have taken forever!!!) makes it even more impressive!
You did a nice job of offering a balanced assortment of tasty treats. It all looks so tasty and on top if that, it looks like something that people would be absolutely delighted to receive, I know I would!
Caramels actually are a pretty good ROI, time wise - it takes about an hour to make a batch that fills a 9x13 pan, which makes 100-150 average-to-moderately-generous sized caramels. The wrapping is a tv job, and relatively relaxing…and sometimes the kids help . And like so many things, the flavour is incomparable!
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what awesome gifts! Everything looks delicious. Even a tiny sample of one of those things would be delightful to receive, but to open the box and see ALL these goodies … that’s holiday joy in it’s purest form.
How would you rate them in difficulty?
