Gifts for Friends

I am a huge fan of gifting homemade goodies to friends year after year. I love that someone will be enjoying something I made and I feel like my gift is special because you could never buy exactly what I made at a store.

This year I have been busy making peanut brittle to share and I made it extra special by dipping it into chocolate and sprinkling red and green decorating sugar or sea salt on each piece. I hope my friends like my treats as much as I liked making them for them, but if not, it's always the thought that counts!

And if your friends or little ones have a nut allergy, Life Made Delicious has lots of great giftable treat ideas too. Their Top 10 Cookie Exchange / Homemade Gift includes Holiday Cake Bon Bons, and Russian Tea Cakes that I'll be trying soon!

Holiday Brittle - makes enough to 6-10 friends

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup nuts or seeds (I used a combination of hazelnuts and pumpkin seeds)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons shortening
Red or green decorating sugar or sea salt, for decoration

1. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and grease it well. There's no need to preheat the oven though, there won't be any baking today!

2. Add the sugar, water, and corn syrup to a pot and bring it to a low boil. Boil for 8-10 minutes or until the colour of the syrup turns golden. There may be smoke, but not to worry, your candy will be just fine.

3. Take the pot off the heat and add the nuts or seeds, butter, vanilla, and baking soda. The baking soda will make the mixture quite frothy and mixture will be gooey and delicious.

4. Quickly pour the mixture onto the greased parchment lined cookie sheet and gently guide the mixture into a puddle rather than a pile.

5. Once mixture has cooled, break it into pieces. You can stop here and your peanut brittle will be amazing, but I wanted to add one more step to my treat.

6. Combine your chocolate chips and shortening in a microwavable bowl and microwave for about 1-2 minutes or until chocolate is melted.

7. Dip pieces of brittle into the chocolate and decorate immediately with sugar or salt.

8. Pack into bags and share with friends!

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.