Baked Gifts – Part 1, Tips to avoid stress and manage disasters

I love handmade gifts, they are so much more personal than shop brought gifts and one of my favourite things to do is bake gifts. However Christmas is a busy time of year so here are my tips for giving baked gifts while avoiding stress and disasters!

Plan ahead and make lists
In my opinion this is the most important step to undertake when considering giving baked or homemade gifts. Way ahead of time, stop and think about the following things and then write it all down:

• Who you want to bake for
• What you want to bake
• When you will be giving people their gifts
• What other stuff do you have to do

Why do you need to think about all this stuff? Well you need to think about who you want to bake for as some people may not appreciate a baked gift (certain members of my family wouldn’t I know), also some people may have special dietary requirements that you need to account for. That is why it is also important to think about exactly what you want to make, it’s no good planning to make everyone chocolate cupcakes if you know that someone doesn’t like chocolate for example. So try and find a recipe that works for the maximum amount of people.

It is also important to consider when you will be seeing people; baked goods have a limited shelf life and need certain storage conditions. It’s no good making something 2 weeks in advance if you know it won’t keep until it’s required. As an example I know I’m seeing relatives this weekend, so I need to have their gift ready first, everyone else I’m not seeing until Christmas Day so I can make their gifts closer to the big day.  Additionally consider all the other things you have to do between now and then like shopping, wrapping presents, making Christmas dinner .etc and choose a recipe that fits into your schedule. 

To use myself as an example I know that I’m not very busy this week so I’m baking a slightly more time consuming recipe for the relatives I’m seeing this weekend (Pepper Nuts for those who are interested) but the rest of my family are getting cupcakes. Why? Because I can make and decorate those in stages and slot it around everything else I have to do and I have a lot of Christmas cooking to do!

Plan some more
Got your recipes? Excellent now it’s time to plan exactly what ingredients you need as you don’t want to find yourself running out of anything on Christmas Eve! So sit down and write down everything you need and how much then head to your store cupboard check what you have and what you need.  This is also a good time to work out your baking schedule.

Shop and bake
Finally it’s time to buy all your ingredients and get baking. I would seriously suggest buying as many ingredients in advance as possible, there’s nothing worse than the shop running out of stock just as you need something. I recommend having a backup plan just in case the worst happens and you can’t get the ingredients you need.

Once it’s time to start baking make sure you have everything and enough time to do it in. Try and get ahead where possible and remember you don’t have to do everything at the same time. It’s perfectly OK to bake the cake early and leave decorating it for later (it might even be easier if you leave the cake for a day or so...) and where possible make decorations in advance. They’ll need some time to firm up or dry so it’s best to get them done in advance.

Finally it’s don’t panic; if a recipe doesn’t work or your decoration isn’t perfect don’t sweat it. Keep calm and carry on! And maybe take a look at my guide for dealing with baking disasters?

Good luck everyone! I’d love to hear what sort of things you are baking for Christmas, let me know in the comments!