Gift Giving - Simpler is Better I Say!

I LOVE giving presents!  One of my favorite things to do is make little gifts to give our neighbors at Christmas. For years I did the traditional bake-a-bazillion-types-of-cookies-all-day thing and give the neighbors a smorgasbord plate of them.  It took a lot of ingredients (expensive), a lot of time, made a HUGE mess, and to be honest it was difficult to get them to all turn out well and stay fresh by the time I could get them finished, packaged, and delivered.

The traditional "plate of Christmas cookies".

A few years back I watched a revolutionary episode of Martha Stewart in which she declared that often it is better to make one type of high quality cookie and package them simply and beautifully for gift giving.  That year I searched for the perfect recipe and decided upon a simple Scottish Shortbread recipe that I found on a blog.  Taking a cue from Panera (where they charge $2-3 for one of these massive shortbread cookies) I made a giant version of this cookie and packed them in pairs for Christmas gifts.  Here is a picture of something similar I did for a tea later that year.

Large shortbread cookies wrapped in cellophane with raffia and lavender sprigs.

This year I decided upon an awesome gingerbread recipe that I found on Food.com.  I love it because the dough is really easy to roll out, it is super spicy and flavorful which gives it an heirloom quality, and the cookies hold their shape well while staying soft with a nice chew.  I iced them by brushing on a simple vanilla icing (1 cup powder sugar, 2 tbsp milk, 1/2 tsp vanilla) and then sprinkled on some raw sugar crystals for a nice simple sparkle.  I also like how the sugar crystals give the cookie a tiny crunch factor.  (Can you tell by reading this that I watch WAY too much Food Network TV!)  For packaging I used clear cellophane bags with a pretty bow.  I placed a piece of green card stock on the bottom to keep the package nice and flat and tiny squares of wax paper in between each cookie so that they wouldn't stick to each other while stacked.  The entire endeavor only took me an hour and 45 minutes from start to finish for eight half-dozen cookie packages which is two batches of this cookie recipe.  You can find the recipe here on Food.com.  Don't over bake them (unless you want crispy cookies)!  My cookies finished in four minutes.  They will firm up as they cool.  Also make sure you let the dough rest at room temperature for at least two hours like the recipe says and for Pete's sake! don't use margarine - only real butter will do if you want quality cookies!

This is what my neighbors got this year:  Vanilla Iced Gingerbread Rounds with Sugar Crystals

One year my oven wasn't working so instead of baking I made homemade greeting cards out of pictures from our trip to Europe.  I chose all pictures of interesting doors we had photographed on our trip.  I packaged the cards in clear plastic and tied the tops with pretty ribbon much like I packaged the cookies.  It was a nice change from baked goods but I still love to bake!

This was one of the door photos we took in Venice, Italy when we were there.

This was one of my favorite door photos from our trip to Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

So what do you gift your neighbors or special people in your life?  I would love to hear some of your ideas!