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Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Christmas baking on a budget

41 replies

Boohissmiss · 10/11/2018 17:23

Money is tight this year so im planning on doing a lot of simple baking type things for the kids to pass long days in the house during the holidays. What things do you all make ? Only things I can think of so far is dipping oreos in choclate and decorating . Rice Krispie cakes and marshmallow top hats . All very basic I know but cheap and cheerful . Thanks in advance .

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Arrowfanatic · 10/11/2018 17:36

Last year we made a rice crisps wreath. Basically put a covered class in the middle of a large cake tin, sprinkled christmassy hundreds and thousands and mini marshmallows into the bottom of the tin, then layered chocolate rice crispies and more sprinkles/mallows. Refrigerate and turn out and it looks Awesome!

CaseStudyResearch · 10/11/2018 17:40

Melting snowman biscuits
Snowflake biscuits

Just need a star cutter for the snowflake ones and the kids can decorate.

There's loads of ideas on Good Food that might take your fancy.

Boohissmiss · 10/11/2018 18:02

Great ideas thanks so much

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festivelyfoolish · 10/11/2018 18:06

Lidl do a lot of baking things at pretty good prices - gingerbread Christmas tree biscuits my kids love

ipswichwitch · 10/11/2018 18:07

Another variant on Rice Krispie cakes, make Krispie Christmas pudding- shape the mixture into balls and refrigerate until set. Then melt white chocolate, pour some on top to look like a Christmas pudding and decorate with edible holly decorations (from cake section at the supermarket)
Recipe off Pinterest here

fairiedemon · 10/11/2018 18:09

Siskilar to PP I was going to mention the cost of baking items is significantly less at Aldi and Lidl.

SinkGirl · 10/11/2018 18:15

Decorating digestives with icing sugar and sugar balls etc

Making stained glass biscuit tree decorations

Gingerbread and some Christmas shaped cutters

TwitterQueen1 · 10/11/2018 18:17

Sausage rolls! Buy nice sausages, snip the casing and take out meat, add loads of herbs and whatever else you fancy (cheese, chutney, apple etc etc), make pastry, make rolls! Absolutely delicious.

Skinandbones · 10/11/2018 18:27

There's a lot of cakes in a jar this year, layers of sponge, jam and butter cream. Could give as pressy or eat on Christmas eve while watching a film maybe.

festivelyfoolish · 10/11/2018 19:08

Oh yes - and you can even make even cheaper veggie sausage rolls - my dds loved doing that last year, good reminder twitterqueen

Boohissmiss · 10/11/2018 22:33

Brilliant thanks everyone I will make sure to go to Lidl too

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Star2015 · 11/11/2018 20:50

Peppermint cremes are easy and cheap to make.

StealingYourWiFi · 11/11/2018 21:19

Oreo truffles, really easy and delicious. Google for recipe!

neurotransmittens · 11/11/2018 21:32

I love Christmas baking but we work on a very basic level in our house Smile
Chocolate Yule log (using either a homemade or a store bought Swiss roll, to decorate yourself) really easy to do and very effective.
Stain glass window biscuits using biscuit dough and boiled sweets, then hang from the tree.
Homemade fudge.
Plain cookie recipe can be transformed with the help of a cookie cutter, then iced.
Brandy or teetotaler Marzipan Cherries are cherries soaked overnight, rolled into balls from marzipan squares then chocolate dipped. Some of it isn't really baking, just a lot of tasting Grin
Some of these have been handed down to me but agree with pp that Good Food website has some lovely ideas.

MsMightyTitanAndHerTroubadours · 11/11/2018 21:35

oreo truffles ....as mentioned by a pp... even NICER if you don't use oreos, and use Bourbons.

Cheaper too!

Alanamackree · 11/11/2018 22:58

Chocolate biscuit pudding - just chocolate, condensed milk and biscuits. Make in a pudding mould. When set pour melted white choc on and decorate with a sprig OG holly.

Choc compost - melt choc and pour into a silicone cake mould and then add a random mix of sweets - mini smarties, chopped crunchie, jelly beans, jelly tots, jelly babies...anything really. Great way to use up Halloween sweets. Super easy for any age to make. We get requests for this every year.

Candy cane lollies - arrange candy canes on a baking sheet so that each two form a heart. Put in oven for a few mins to soften and then carefully (it’s very hot) press a lollystick into bottom of each heart. Cool and fill with melted chocolate and sprinkle on crushed candy canes (freeze first before crushing)

Ginger bread house- ikea and tiger do good kits. If you crush up yellow or orange boiled sweets you can make windows. Line a baking sheet with parchment and fill the window spaces with crushed sweets. Then remove the gingerbread. Melt sweets in oven for a minute or two then carefully put the gingerbread back in position and leave to garden. Glue the house together with white choc which sets faster than icing and just cover the seams with icing.

If you have a silicone mould pipe or spoon in melted choc and shake on sprinkles. Easy to do with even smallest children and the silicone mould ensures a great looking result regardless of how messy they are.

Marshmallows dipped in white choc and dipped in sprinkles.

Gingerbread men and women are a must! And even nicer dipped in choc!

A basic cookie dough can be adapted to lots of different flavors. You can also make it in advance and freeze it.

Fondant decorations are really fun to make- it’s essentially edible play dough.

Not edible, but salt dough decorations are also very easy. A tip is to dry them for a couple of days before putting them in the oven so they don’t crack. If your dc are older instead of cookie cutter decorations you could

Alanamackree · 11/11/2018 22:59

Gah! Posted too soon!
If your kids are older you could attempt a more ornate design with salt dough like a wreath or a Christmas scene.

Olderbyaminute · 11/11/2018 23:13

I don’t know if you have access to refrigerated American buttermilk biscuits in a can but using that and a relatively few other ingredients you can make “monkey bread” a sweet dough baked in a bundt cake pan and is delicious-you can use various flavors such as caramel or citrus-I make it for Christmas or New Years or Easter

Pooleschoolschoice · 11/11/2018 23:17

Ooh following for ideas!

My fav xmas thing is the chocolate spread xmas tree with prebought puff pastry. But no idea whether ot fits in a budget...

Deminism · 11/11/2018 23:52

following

MsMightyTitanAndHerTroubadours · 17/11/2018 16:50

you can do Monkey bread by making an ordinary scone dough, just a little wetter than usual

pull bits off, don't shape them or roll them, they need to be craggy and rando......dangle them in melted butter and then cinnamon sugar and drop them into a Bundt tin, along with nuts and raisins...bake in oven for about 25-30 mins and get it out of the tin before the sugar sets and sticks it to the tin for all eternity!! :o

JustKeepSwimmingJustKeepSwimmi · 17/11/2018 17:06

Im looking for budget xmas recipes to do with a low-income group I work with. Would a Yule log count as budget? Do you use cream and chocolate for the topping? It would def be fun.

I love making ready puff pastry/nutella xmas trees but that might not be budget?

Also using leftovers - pasties, soup...

Ali1cedowntherabbithole · 17/11/2018 17:18

I found out on a chocolate making course that if you add golden syrup to chocolate it becomes mouldable. (Professionals use liquid glucose).

It works best with cooking or white chocolate that doesn’t need tempering first. I’ve had really good fun moulding things with Aldi 39p white chocolate and you can add food colouring to make pretty nearly any colour.

I’m sure your D.C. could come up with some great ideas.

MaverickSnoopy · 18/11/2018 06:10

Marzipan chocolates - get little balls of marzipan and dip into melted chocolate. Put in fridge and decant into little bowls. Scoff.

Peppermint creams - icing sugar, peppermint, glycerine, egg white and lemon juice.

Tree chocolates - may not work for this year and you need to make an outlay. Buy Christmas shaped silicone moulds and keep the tree chocolate wrappers from previous years. Then yearly buy cheap chocolate, melt and pour in. Sounds boring but honestly one of my favourite childhood memories.

Mince pies - ingredients from Aldi are very cheap and they sell ready made pastry too.

BikeRunSki · 18/11/2018 06:18

Perfect chocolate chip cookies cheap, easy, look great, satisfying

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