Gift ideas for the food lover in your life

This year has been the time to unleash your inner foodie. Whether you’ve always been a Masterchef in the kitchen or if you came into your own with the banana bread-baking shenanigans of the first lockdown, a lot of us have been creative in the kitchen this year. The beauty of this means we all now have skills which we can bring into the future and develop further, and really, nothing brings people together better than food.

To foster the foodie in all your friends and family, take some gifting tips from us. We’ve also tried to suggest ideas from independent and small businesses, so you’ll be gifting smiles all around.

Gifts for the ultimate all-rounder

Heartfelt, personalised food gifts are likely to go down a treat with anyone in your life who enjoys a tasty, indulgent treat or just likes something very specific. However, there are some food gifts which can be great for the people in your life who seem to like everything.

Everybody loves doughnuts and the global doughnut market has already made a profit of around $50 million in 2020. It would be wrong then, not to indulge in such a winning gift. Enter our good friends at Doughnut Time UK. Their doughy delights are everything a doughnut should be- huge, gooey, and over the top, filled and topped with all manner of crowd-pleasing favourites.

Their DIY Doughnut Kits are the ultimate group gift, with prices ranging from £22.00 to £28.00 you can pick from a wide array of themes, including their ‘Christmas Six Pack’, the ‘Christmas Mega Wreath’ and they even offer an array of vegan kits. Each kit comes with everything you need to create an outrageously decadent doughnut, all you need to do is employ your creative skills and have a stomach ready to devour your creation after the compulsory Instagram photoshoot. They deliver countrywide, and right up until Christmas Day, so they’re also a super convenient choice too.

Gifts for the star baker in your kitchen

We all know someone who deserves star baker status. Etsy is filled with options for anyone who loves to bake like Mary Berry herself. From a personalised ‘Star Baker’ apron to personalised wooden spoons, badges, cake slices and rolling pins.

Boasting options to facilitate any budget – how does a whole suite of personalised baking accessories sound? If you’d like to give a cheeky nudge in the direction of more cookery escapades, cookbooks are the gifts which keep on giving. Try Mary Berry: Fool-Proof Cooking; Crave: Brilliantly Indulgent Recipes by Martha Collison; Nadiya Bakes by Nadiya Hussain, and Crumb: The Baking Book by Ruby Tandoh for a winning option.

Gifts for the student snack-a-holic

Christmas holidays for students often mean a few days of festive jollity sandwiched between weeks of assignment stress. The one thing that unites the two is the need for snacks. What better way to help out your fellow students than to create a snack hamper to keep them fuelled over the holiday?

The beauty of this gift is that it’s almost 100% done by yourself and can be switched up to create a totally unique present, bound to impress even the hardest to please. We recommend getting a good variety of products, just to keep things interesting – think chocolate, sweets, lollipops, popcorn, nuts, crisps, jerky, fizzy drinks – whatever you feel will keep energy levels, and the festive spirit up.

Gifts for couples

They met in first year, threw longing looks at each other while you all got down to some of Disco Dave’s finest tunes, and finally after months of agonising, they got together. Your whole friendship group seems more invested in their relationship than they are sometimes.

Christmas gifts are tricky to buy for people like this, so we suggest a ‘two birds with one stone’ approach. For £20 you could grab Hotel Chocolat’s indulgent ‘Mini Chocolate Dipping Adventure for Two’ or save them from future arguments with a set of ‘takeaway dice’, to help them settle the Deliveroo night indecision.

No matter who you’re buying for this holiday season, it’s going to be a Christmas like no other. It’s safe to say we’re all going to be glad for our health, and the wellbeing of all those important to us. Stay safe, and have a happy Christmas.