Looking for fun, easy to make last minute Christmas gift ideas? I have six quick and easy last minute homemade gifts you can make in a few hours. These homemade Christmas gifts are perfect for unexpected guests, neighbours, friends and teachers. These homemade Christmas treats are also perfect to take with you when you’re invited to someone’s house over the festive period.
We’ve all had that embarrassing moment of someone giving an unexpected Christmas gift, but you can quickly and easily whip up a round of these homemade edible gifts and deliver them the very next day. I think edible gifts are great at Christmas: they are so special if you make them yourself (or with a little help from the kids!) Most of these easy last minute homemade Christmas gift ideas use ingredients you’ll probably already have, or can easily get from the local shop. So read on for my top 6 easy last minute homemade Christmas gifts!
Quick and Easy Peppermint Creams Make a Great Homemade Christmas Gift
These homemade treats are so easy that you can pretty much leave older kids to make them. Peppermint creams are so easy and delicious, and don’t need any baking. This makes homemade peppermint creams so quick and easy to make for last minute gifting emergencies.
There are only four ingredients in these no-bake peppermint creams: icing sugar, egg white, peppermint essence and dark chocolate. We use the BBC Peppermint Creams recipe which you can find here.
As an alternative, you could try this Easy Peppermint Creams recipe using condensed milk instead of egg.
Easy Peasy Cheesy Biscuits Are Perfect To Take For Christmas Tea
I make these easy four ingredient cheese biscuits every year for Christmas tea, and they always go down well. This year I tried making them with gluten free flour and they worked well, if a little more crumbly than usual! They keep well in a biscuit tin… if they last that long!
How to make cheesy biscuits
Mix together 150g plain flour, sifted, with 150g of grated mature cheddar cheese. Add 150g diced butter and rub it together with your fingertips. Stir in 1 egg yoke, and mix to form a dough. (I do all these steps in my food processor and it takes next to no time.)
Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour. Heat your oven to 200 C/400 F and grease some baking sheets.
Roll out your dough thinly on a floured work top. It’s a sticky dough so you need to flour your rolling pin well as well. Cut out rounds, hearts or stars, whatever shape you like. Place them on your greased baking sheets and bake for about 10 minutes, until they are light golden brown. Transfer onto a cooling rack and serve straight away.
Optional: Add a teaspoon of mustard to give them a little extra bite.
They are so crumbly and light, you can almost inhale them!
I recommend making your peppermint creams with your cheesy biscuits on the same day, to use up the egg. (You use the egg white in the peppermint creams, and a yoke in the cheesy biscuits.)
Gift Christmas Star Biscuits in a Pretty Box
These gently spiced biscuits are also a Christmas winner for me. They are so delicious and keep well in an airtight tin. With all the classic Christmas flavours of spice and orange, they make the house smell amazing as you bake too!
Ingredients for spiced star biscuits
For the biscuits:
- 200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 90g cubed butter
- 85g soft light brown sugar
- rind of 1 orange, finely grated
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
For the icing:
- 200g icing sugar
- 2-4 tsp water (or use the juice of the orange)
- sprinkles if you like
Method for Christmas spiced star biscuits
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C/350 F and line several large baking sheets with baking paper.
Sift the flour,, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl, add the butter, and rub it in with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and orange zest, then add the egg and mix to form a soft dough. (I do this all in the food processor and it’s so easy.)
Roll out the mixture to about half a cm, on a lightly floured worktop. Cut out with a star shaped cookie cutter, I have a set with several different style stars so they look really pretty. Place on the baking paper and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until they are golden brown, as above.
Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Next, make the icing by sifting the icing sugar into a bowl, and adding enough cold water, or orange juice to make a smooth, slightly runny icing. Drizzle over the cooled biscuits, and add sprinkles if you like.
Give Homemade Fudge to Neighbours this Christmas
Who can resist a crumbly, creamy homemade fudge? Not me, that’s for sure! There are tonnes of recipes for homemade fudge but this easy crumbly fudge recipe from BBC Good Food is my favourite.
Donna from What The Redhead Said also has loads of great slow cooker fudge recipes you could try. This one for white chocolate orange fudge look mouthwatering!
Homemade Reindeer Chocolate Crispy Cakes Are Great Christmas Gifts
These cute little reindeer faces are another no-bake recipe that kids love to make. You’ll probably have the ingredients for these homemade Christmas gifts to hand already. Maybe not the candy eyes, but you can easily improvise with chocolate drops, jelly sweets etc. I have some left over from Halloween so I’m all set!
Easy No-Bake Peppermint Bark Is a Popular Homemade Christmas Gift
This homemade peppermint bark always goes down really well with kids and grownups alike. It makes a great, quick Christmas gift when broken up and popped in a nice box. The layers of melted chocolate need to cool, so it does take a little longer, but you can do other jobs in between. Check out the full easy recipe for homemade peppermint bark here.
I hope you’ve found my homemade edible gift ideas handy, please Pin them to your Christmas Pinterest board!
