We love being in the kitchen around here.
Partly because of how sensory-inviting baking and cooking are, partly because we love to eat, and partly because, well, it’s something to pass the time!
In all our baking, we’ve narrowed down our go-to recipes for neighbor gifts and linked them for you to try!
Pinch of Yum’s Coconut Oil Granola. This stuff is delicious. Our family could eat it straight for all three meals + snacks for weeks. It’s mostly just pouring and mixing; the grunt work is in chopping the nuts (pecans and pistacios—are there any better nuts?!) Unfortunately, the ingredients are a little on the pricier side, so if you’re making a bulk batch, go with one of our other options!
Sally’s Baking Addiction’s Vanilla Almond Granola. A straightforward, classic granola recipe with easy ingredients (leave out the almond extract if you don’t have any in the depths of the spice cupboard). We bulk make this recipe for neighbor gifts regularly.
Pinch of Yum’s Healthy-ish Breakfast Cookies. No lie. Our neighbors request these! We make with whatever we have on hand, but we love coconut, chocolate chips, and frozen blueberries for our add ins. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Puppy Chow (Muddy Buddies). I love gifting (and receiving) puppy chow because it’s basically fail proof. Gluten free, even! Plus, it’s one of those sweet treats I know could never go to waste. Even though it’s overly-sugary and even makes me feel a little sick, over my dead body will a single powdered-sugar covered chex be left uneaten. Ironically, most of the people I’ve talked to feel similarly. We’ll devour puppy chow, but will abandon other more complex baked goods. Not to mention how fun and potentially messy it is to prep making it a favorite for baking with kids.
You can go for a basic puppy chow recipe, or try our fave, Double Dark Chocolate Muddy Buddies, recipe by What’s Gaby Cooking. It’s subtle (almond butter + dark chocolate combo kills me) and a little more palatable in large doses. Don’t second guess leaving out the chocolate extract either; it’s delicious without it.
Any muffin from the Natural Nurturer. If we have to pick, we’ve probably made the carrot-apple vegan muffins the most often, but the recipe variety is what makes Taesha’s recipes so fun! If you have any veggie that’s going to go unused, you can bet she has a muffin recipe that will get it eaten.
Muffins are a favorite baking activity for us because they easily come together in a blender or food processor. The kids love settling liners in the muffin pan and scooping batter with our scooper. It’s also nice to give/receive something on the “healthier” side (natural sugars and gluten free while still being delicious)—especially for people whose dietary needs we aren’t aware of quite yet.
Once you’ve settled on your recipe, it’s time to package up your baked goods and deliver! I can’t tell you how many times we’ve baked with every intent of passing the finished product along to neighbors, but I get bogged down packaging and the goods end up eaten and digested before I can yell, “That’s not for you!”
Here are a few easy packaging solutions that have become old standbys for us.
Ziplock baggies, folded over and stapled with a pretty piece of paper.
Treat bags tied with bakers twine.
A repurposed take out tray or box.
Old school lunch bags, kraft paper bags folded over and dressed up with a strip of washi tape across (horizontally).
Mason Jars (or old jelly/glass jars) with a simple, repurposed ribbon across the neck.
Pre-buying and stocking a pile of kraft gift bags with cellophane cut out and wire closure. I wait till Hobby Lobby has them on sale or these on Amazon look similar!
Happy Baking!