Katie Bryson food styling for the Good Food Channel’s Christmas photoshoot, photo by Sharron Gibson
I cooked, baked and styled for a massive 21 recipe festive photoshoot for the Good Food Channel website last week. It was a HUGE job that involved a lot of list making, shopping, recipe developing, and intense baking sessions.
Anna, Sharron and I had a huge amount of fun on shoot days though, so all the preparations paid off. Christmas tunes were blaring, icing sugar was dusted and brandy glugged into quite a few of the recipes…
So in the run-up to Christmas I’m going to be sharing everything I made in a series of blog posts that I hope will help inspire for the season to come.
We’ll start with…
Edible Christmas Gifts
Making your own Christmas presents is all the rage in this cash strapped climate.
The time and effort you spend preparing something for someone is a sure fire way to make them feel more special than if you’d just grabbed a bottle of shower gel from Boots.
These projects are also perfect to make with the children to give as end of term pressies to their teacher. Let me know what you think of them!
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Christmas biscuit wreath
Not something to hang on your door, unless you sprayed it with glue! No, this edible wreath made of snowflake shaped cinnamon flavoured cookies is something to pop in the centre of a party table, or package up in a nice box as a present. It’s actually much more achievable than it looks, so is definitely worth having a go at if you want a bit of a festive centre piece this year.
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Chocolate dipped ginger biscuits
These little fellas are melting moment style biscuits flecked with warming crystallised ginger, then dipped in dark chocolate. Definitely a treat for grown-ups, with the possibility of being dunked in an Irish Coffee of a Christmas Eve!
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Oreo fridge cake
This is the ultimate make-with-kids recipe as it’s so simple. It’s only got four ingredients – popcorn, marshmallows, oreos and melted chocolate. It also looks fantastic once it’s sliced up, and most importantly tastes just as good as it is bad for you. What’s not to love?
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Cookie mix in a jar
This will always be my absolute favourite home made gift idea. I remember seeing them for sale in the Selfridges Food Hall years ago for a ridiculously inflated price and promising myself I could do just as good a job at home for a fraction of the price. You have all your dry ingredients layered up in the jar, then you write out the instructions for the recipient along with a list of what else you need to add plus full instructions for baking.
The resulting cookies are those scrumptious crispy chewy ones with plenty of texture. Highly scoffable!
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Chocolate bark
Another classic, another one to get the kids involved with, give them all pots of their favourite toppings and let them loose! It packages up well, just make sure it’s kept cool or it’ll melt everywhere!
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Chocolate and nut breadsticks
I love these festive chocolate wands, they look so striking and taste DIVINE. You can customise them with any toppings you fancy, but these ones have pistachios and cranberries on. The key is to get them setting in the fridge as soon as you’ve coated them, so they stay in tact! You could package them up three at a time in cellophane bags, or pop a handful in a festively decorated jar and serve them up at a party.
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Brownie mix in a jar
And finally another creation in a jar, this time brownies. It makes a great gift for any chocolate-loving bakers in your life, or could be a welcome addition to any gift stalls at all the Christmas Fairs coming up.
Don’t forget to style it up!
As well as having some great recipes up your sleeve, arm yourself with lots of pretty trimmings to give your packaging a professional finish. I scoured Amazon for a lot of the ribbons and twines you can see in these photos, and Lakeland are always a winner for packs of the clear cellophane bags.
Anna had this brilliant stamping kit she used for the labels that she’d got a while ago from Muji. The jars we used for the cookie and brownie mixes were kilner jars which are the right 1 litre capacity for both recipes. I customised the top of the lids with festive Scandinavian crafting paper from Amazon and stickers from Lakeland.
What are your favourite things to make as gifts? Let me know what you’ll be making this year!
Photo by Sharron Gibson
Phenomenal Katie! I can’t believe you managed that many recipes! No wonder you are shattered! Hope you got to taste some of the lovely edible gifts and treats. I love them all and I’ll definitely be giving a few of them a go – particularly like the chocolate and nut bread sticks.
Thanks Ren!! It was a recipe marathon! And yes, I got to try it all and my jeans are feeling a little tight this week as a result. The bread sticks are so yummy – let me know how you get on with them.
I’ve made rose hip syrup, which is great for chasing away winter colds, and some jams. My favourite make so far though are these cute little Christmas Pudding Truffles…
http://vohnmcg.com/2013/11/15/christmas-pudding-truffles/
Vohn x
What gorgeous looking truffles Vohn – perfect gifts!!!! Love the idea of rose hip syrup too… will be investigating.
Great looking recipes and photos Katie. Good styling tips too, although Ican believe quite how much you got through.
Thanks Jac! Yes it was a very busy two day shoot with a good few days of prepping and baking in advance. It’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.
Wow, that is an incredible amount of recipes to produce, and all wonderful too. I think you deserve a bit of a rest soon and hopefully someone to make you a few treats. I love your brownies in a jar and will be making as part of the teachers’ gifts this year, brilliant idea!
Thanks Laura, glad you like them. The brownies and cookies in jars are my faves for gifting. They remind me of those glass lighthouse shaped jars of different coloured sand you could get in sea side gift shops.
Wow, that is an incredible amount of recipes to produce, and all wonderful too. I think you deserve a bit of a rest soon and hopefully someone to make you a few treats. I love your brownies in a jar and will be making as part of the teachers’ gifts this year, such a good idea!
Marathon or what! But loving the look of all of them, I’m leaning towards gifts in jars this year so the brownie one is looking pretty perfect for me!
Thanks Sian. Yes brownie mix in jars… what’s not to love about that?!!!!
Hi Katie. It was lovely getting to know you today. Your blog is amazing. I’m definitely going to try some of your recipes for our family very soon! Take care and see you soon! Helene
Aw thanks Helene!!! It was great to meet you too. Really excited about the course 🙂