Food - Recipes : Dark cherry and hazelnut biscotti. Dan Lepard's edible Christmas gift recipes. Chestnut chocolate cookies These are great served alongside a bowl of vanilla ice cream covered in hot fudge sauce (see recipe below). There's an old company in France, Clément Faugier, that makes a beautiful blend of puréed chestnuts, sugar and vanilla, which is what I used here – it's available in some supermarkets and delis, and online. You can make something similar by mixing 150g very finely puréed chestnuts with 100g brown sugar and the seeds from a vanilla pod. I use a large piping bag with a star nozzle to make the cookies, creating a snake-like swirl with pointed grooves trailing through it, but you can just use a spoon to spread the mixture on to the tray in ovals or rounds. 125g unsalted butter, softened250g tin sweetened chestnut purée125g dark chocolate, melted75g icing sugar2 egg yolks225g plain flour Hot chocolate fudge sauce A great standby, because it can cope with a little mucking about both before bottling and when you serve it.
Homemade fresh mint truffles. Edible Christmas present recipes. Walnuts in dates with honey and orange blossom water This is a lovely little Christmas gift, perfect to eat with coffee, wine or just as a little snack. Its roots are Middle Eastern and it seems particularly Christmassy in a very sticky way. They last a couple of weeks, though don’t keep them in the fridge. You can multiply as you need. Makes 1 250g jar 1 250g jar, cleaned and sterilised in boiling water 125g jar of honey 2 tbsp orange flower water 6 dates 6 walnuts out of the shell Boiling water 1. 2.
Food - Collections : Homemade present ideas. Gourmet gifts - BBC Good Food.