A little something homemade
There’s something lovely about turning up at a friend’s house with something you’ve made, especially when it isn’t for a big occasion or part of some elaborate plan. Just a small gift because you were thinking of them.
This one started with a batch of cookies.
I wanted to take something to a friend and decided that homemade felt nicer than buying something. The cookies weren’t perfectly shaped, and some were definitely more generous with the chocolate than others, but that’s part of what I like about baking for people. Nobody expects a homemade biscuit to look as though it has come out of a packet, and I’m not sure I’d want it to.
Once they’d cooled, I piled them into a glass jar I already had. There’s something about putting homemade biscuits into a jar that makes them feel instantly gift-worthy, even though all you’ve really done is bake something and find a container for it.
Of course, once the cookies were in the jar, I decided it needed something else.
I tied on one of our owl tags, which says hoot hoot hooray! and is probably a little sillier than the situation required. That was exactly why I liked it.
The whole thing was very simple: homemade cookies, a glass jar, a bit of string and a paper tag. But given to a friend, those ordinary things become something quite different.
I think we sometimes make giving gifts much harder than it needs to be. There can be so much emphasis on finding the perfect present, wrapping it beautifully and waiting until there’s a sufficiently important reason to give it. In reality, some of the nicest gifts are the ones that aren’t particularly grand at all.
It might be biscuits you baked because you knew someone would enjoy them, flowers from the garden, a book you’ve finished and know a friend would love, or a little parcel left at someone’s door. The value isn’t really in what you’ve spent on it. It’s in knowing that someone thought of you and went to the trouble of doing something about it.
That’s probably why homemade gifts have always felt particularly thoughtful to me. There is evidence of the person who made them. The cookies won’t all be the same size, the string might not sit perfectly and the jar may well have come out of the kitchen cupboard rather than from a carefully planned shopping list. None of that makes the gift less special. If anything, I think it makes it more so.
Paper fits naturally into that kind of giving too. You don’t need elaborate wrapping to make something feel personal. A tag, a card or a few handwritten words can be enough to turn a very ordinary thing into a proper little gift, while still letting it feel homemade.
In this case, that meant a jar full of cookies and a cheerful owl attached to the front.
Nothing fancy. Just something made at home for a friend, which was really the point.
And if you want the recipe to these decedent choc chip cookies:
And if you want the recipe to these decedent choc chip cookies:
Decadent Choc-Chip Cookies
Makes: 12 large cookies
Ingredients
- 170 g unsalted butter
- 160 g brown sugar
- 80 g caster sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
- 240 g plain flour
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp fine salt
- 2 tsp vanilla essence *
- 200 g dark or milk chocolate, roughly chopped
- 80 g chocolate chips
- Flaky sea salt, optional
I actually didn't have any vanilla and swapped it with a pinch of cinnamon. It brought a delicious warmth!
- Brown the butter: melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until it foams and smells nutty and turns a golden brown. Then cool for 10 mins.
- Whisk the browned butter with both sugars.
- Add the egg and extra yolk and whisk until glossy.
- Cobine the flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt and fold into the wet mixture until just combined.
- Fold through the chopped chocolate and choc chips.
- Divide into 12 balls (I used a ice cream scoop).
- If you have time, put in the fridge for 30-60 mins for thicker cookies.
- Bake at 160°C fan forced for 13-15 minutes and take them out while the centres still look a little underdone.
- Sprinkle with salt and leave to cool for 10 mins on the tray before moving to a rack.
This is definitely the one worth keeping in the family baking rotation!