Quick and Easy Chocolate Gifts


chocolategift1.jpg If you’re like me, you love making food gifts to give. They’re easy, inexpensive, and mean so much more than a store-bought treat. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy receiving a box full of homemade yummies? With Christmas right around the corner, forgo store-bought goodies for homemade treats by dipping all kinds of things in melted chocolate.

My mom makes chocolate covered peanut butter crackers every year and everyone loves them. They’re so easy and the perfect mix of salty and sweet. Just make your PB crackers, dip in melted chocolate (I use a double boiler so it won’t burn or scorch the chocolate), place on wax paper on a cookie sheet, and place in freezer or refrigerator until the chocolate cools.

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You can do the same with graham crackers and marshmallow fluff, making smores.

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Pretzels are also great covered in chocolate, and you can sprinkle nuts or white chocolate overtop for extra taste.

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Melting white chocolate and letting it cool slightly, and placing in a ziplock bag with a hole cut in the tip is a great way to add graphics and visual appeal to your chocolate treats.

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Using milk chocolate can be expensive, so I go a little cheaper and use chocolate and vanilla flavored almond bark. It taste just like chocolate, gives a smooth finish, and is much less expensive. Plus I have a slight allergy to cocoa and I can eat this and not have any problems. You can find this in the baking aisle of your grocery store with the bar chocolates and chocolate chips.

Whatever you decide to do, put it in a basket, or a clear bag with some festive ties and you’ve got a great and incredibly thoughtful holiday gift.

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I love the smores idea! Now you’ve got me thinking about all kinds of things dipped in chocolate. How about oreos dipped in white chocolate? Yummm.

That’s be great as well. You can even skewer a couple of marshmallows and dip them as well. The possibilities really are endless.

I like the smores idea too, I love chocolate covered graham crackers. In addtition to Oreos with crushed candy canes on them, I like doing Nutter Butters and shortbread cookies.

If you do the marshmallows, stick them in the freezer a little bit before dipping them so they don’t get all gooey and melt. And they’ve got the toasted coconut marshmallows too which would be good.

Okay, I know this is not in the spirit of the holiday joy, but come on! Chocolate and vanilla “flavored” almond bark tastes just like chocolate only if you eat really bad chocolate. Just use the real stuff. It doesn’t have to be Valrhona or Scharffenberger, but at least some semi-sweet chocolate chips. I mean, as long as you’re going to the trouble.
And while I’m at it: How does this qualify, exactlyl, as “baking”? Not that it isn’t a nice and thoughtful gift idea, but again, come ON! You are dipping store bought junk into bad fake chocolate. I expect more from you!

On a more positive note: Nice cookie troubleshooting post last week. Those were some good tips.

I didn’t realize you had such high expectations for me, Joanna ;) While I, too, enjoy high quality, homemade delicacies as often as I can make them, when time is short and money is tight I resort to things like this and I get just as many raves, if not more. But thanks for the comment anyways!

[…] This year we mixed it up, handing out blueberry chutney that I jarred mid-summer, piling easy-to-make peppermint bark in cellophane wrap with pretty ribbons, rolling snowball cookies in confectioners sugar (though these may not make it out of our kitchen) and delivering mini loaves of eggnog pound cake to teachers and neighbors. Don’t forget to peek at the mountain of cookies and goodies that are spread across the blogosphere and World Wide Web. A few kid-friendly, kitchen-helper choices include peanut butter sandwich cookies, ginger pecans, seasonal cupcakes, or this long list of Christmas cookies. […]

How do you prepare the chocolate??