With the many COVID supply chain problems (not to mention Canada’s recent weather-induced transportation disasters) leaving Christmas or other holiday gift giving to the last minute has never been riskier.
But let’s also be honest. Most of us don’t need or want more stuff. If you are like me you’ve spent the better part of the last couple of years working from home and becoming acutely aware of all the crap that never gets used but seemed like a good idea at the time.
The solution? Consumable presents!
But tied in with consumable I also mean useful. Plenty of people want to sell you holiday-themed tea, soap, candles and other seasonably festive stuff, but how much of it really gets used? Or does it get lost in the back of the cupboard and get pitched during spring cleaning? The Christmas aesthetic is fun for a few weeks a year but it gets stale like so much expired green and red pick-and-mix.
The answer to this problem is in thinking like a chef.
Chefs are always making scraps of this and that into useful ingredients - compound butters, spice blends, stocks, preserves and pickles of various kinds to name only a few. In fact, these custom ingredients are short-cuts to great-tasting food and put the chef’s signature stamp on recipes.
And the best part? Some of them are really easy!
So I’m going to share with you a quick and easy holiday gift that almost anyone will love: infused sugar!
All you really need are some glass jars, white sugar, a few spices and/or citrus fruits, and maybe a microplane grater.
Run your jars and lids though your dishwasher on the hottest cycle, or boil them for about 10 minutes in a pot of water on your stovetop. You want them more than merely clean, you want them sanitized.
When the jars have air-dried (no grungy dishrags please!) fill them with white sugar and then pick your flavours:
Vanilla Sugar: This is the easiest one of all. Split a couple of vanilla beans and scrape out the seeds. Mix the seeds into your sugar and stick the empty pods in the jar too. (And top secret here: if you wanted to keep the vanilla seeds for your own holiday baking I’m not going to tell. The pods have TONS of vanilla flavour and will do fine on their own.)
Star Anise Sugar: Mix in a about a tablespoon of broken pods, then add a few whole for decoration.
Lavender Sugar: Mix or layer a tablespoon or two of edible lavender flowers (not the potpourri kind!) into your sugar.
Orange Sugar: Dump the sugar back out on plate, microplane the zest of a couple of oranges and stir. Let dry at room temperature for an hour or two, break up the clumps, and pour your now-pretty orange sugar back in the jar.
Make pretty labels if you’d like. Or be like me a slap a bow on them and call it a day.
And what to do with these lovely hand-made creations? Vanilla sugar goes with nearly anything - in coffee and baking in particular. Star anise sugar would also be cool in coffee, but is amazing with tropical fruits like pineapple and citrus (fruit salad anyone?) Lavender sugar is fabulous in baking, particularly pound cake or anything with berries (especially blueberries!). Orange sugar? It’s an excellent addition to baking, with fruit, in cocktails, etc.
And there are many more flavours you can play with. Lime sugar? Sure! Cardamom sugar (made with crushed pods) for the Turkish coffee lover in your life. Orange zest AND vanilla pods? Cremesicle sugar! Grind up some freeze-dried strawberries and stir them into a jar. Strawberry sugar! If you find a flavour in a dessert you can use it in sugar.
One caveat though: if you want to use an herb like mint, dry it (or use a dried version) rather than try to mix chopped fresh bits into the sugar. Fresh herbs are too wet, take forever to dry, and end up smelling like lawn clippings.
Flavoured sugars taste better if they have a week to infuse, but if you are in a panic and need a host gift right this minute they will still be great. The jars don’t need refrigeration at all, and can even be topped up with additional sugar for several months, especially the vanilla.
While it is the thought that counts when it comes to gift-giving, a truly thoughtful gift, customized for the recipient’s tastes, is the one that delights the most. You aren’t investing a lot of time or ingredients here, so don’t be afraid of experimenting a bit - the only limit is your imagination.
Like this tip? Let me know what you think at heykettleoffish@gmail.com