12 Dec Christmas food and gift ideas – part one
I haven’t written any Christmas posts, because I find the whole thing incredibly stressful, and today I started to get into the spirit of things, and consequently feel as though the sky is falling in.
I have been really excited about some of the recipes for Christmas food gifts that have been on the web this time of year, and it is exciting to join the fold and try some of these awesome foodie ideas for Christmas.
Christmas fruit balls
We often have rum balls at Christmas, but I have found three recipes for fruit balls on the web recently that were particularly inspiring. I think they are going to make great pressies for clients:
- Glenda’s Christmas Bliss Balls look sensational, they have the loveliest spices of ground cardamon and cloves, with orange zest and orange juice. My recipe was slightly different and didn’t include the orange juice, unfortunately (I forgot to buy an orange), but they look sensational! I love the fact that she rolls them in one of black sesame seeds, chia seeds or linseed to add diversity to the look of the balls.
- Then I found these Apricot, date, coconut and cocoa balls, and thought that the addition of cocoa, might bring a real sweetness to this type of Christmas food gift. I omitted the vanilla essence and brown rice flour from this recipe, which looks amazing!
- Then, as I was mulling all of this over, waiting for a space in time to procure all the ingredients and get experimenting, Glenda from Healthy Stories, posted another Christmas ball recipe. This time she used cocoa and nuts, and it looks sensational! Cranberry, cashew, choc balls.
I adapted these recipes slightly and made a delicious variation with pistachios and walnuts, I also added cacao and coconut to the mix.
They are so tasty! You should try some 🙂 It was fun to take all the ingredients I love the best from these three recipes and make yummy sweet Christmas treats.
They are particularly lovely when they have been refrigerated for a while, and the tang of the fruit with the sweetness of the chocolate makes for a delicious sweet 🙂
Merry Christmas!!
Glenda @ Healthy Stories
Posted at 20:05h, 12 DecemberGlad you like the balls Sarah – and don’t worry about any more distractions of new ball recipes from my kitchen for a little while 🙂 What I love about making bliss balls is that if you are short on an ingredient, you can substitute for other type of dried fruits or nuts, and then add in different flavours as you go along. I find that it’s important to use dates in the base because their stickiness helps to hold them together, but otherwise pretty much anything goes.
Sarah James
Posted at 07:48h, 13 DecemberHi Glenda,
Yes, I was very excited about your recipes – tasty!! The dates are nice, but I did feel as though I had a bit of a sugar crash yesterday 🙂 All that dried fruit I guess! I think when I make some more this weekend I am going to increase the nuts (pistachios are yum!) and decrease the dried fruit a bit (I used cranberries, apricots and dates!).
I hope you have a lovely Christmas. Thanks for the inspiration!!
xxxo Sarah