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Personalized gifts are always appreciated in a day and age when most people have almost everything that can be bought in stores. Instead of giving out flowers, chocolates and prepackaged toiletries as favors in your parties, during holidays and to hosts and hostesses, why not create gifts in your own kitchen? When you give people something that you have made all by yourself in the kitchen, you not only let them know about your love for cooking, you also make them feel special by giving them something that you have made personally. Given here are some cooking ideas for making gifts in your own kitchen.

Cookies and Cakes: Cakes and cookies are all time favorites when it comes to cooking to gift. These are the best things to make in your kitchen if you are a good baker. Even if you are not, you can try out a few simple recipes for dry cakes and cookies. Some much appreciated and gifted baked goodies include chocolate chip cookies, walnut cookies, coconut macaroons, oatmeal cookies and chocolate cookies. Fruit cakes like Dundee and pineapple upside downs are also a good idea. Make sure that whatever you bake will last for a few days outside the fridge and be carried around without breaking up. You can gift the cookies in glass cookie jars wrapped with ribbons or decorate your cake tins with bows and ribbons to make the gift look nice and festive.

Vinegars and Oils: Flavored oils and vinegars are getting popular as more and more people turn towards salads as meals and accompaniments. You can easily flavor wines, ciders, vinegars and oils using herbs and spices. Pack them up in interesting looking glass bottles and tie on the top with twirling ribbons to get a gift that is both classy and useful. Some combinations that you can try are cilantro, lime and jalapenos in synthetic white vinegar, lemon and tarragon in white wine vinegar and basil and garlic or garlic, oregano and onion in olive oil.

Tea and Coffee: You can also gift your friends your own personalized brew. For tea drinkers, you can create spiced tea by combining one part peppermint leaves to one part of regular tea leaves. Add some spices like cinnamon, cloves, all spice and dried orange or lemon peels in small quantities. Let this mixture stand for a week before transferring to a steel or glass jar to gift. Your friends will love this aromatic and unique brew. You can also gift people cappuccino powder created in your own kitchen. Mix two cups of drinking chocolate powder with two cups of dry dairy creamer, a cup of powdered sugar and one and a half cups of instant coffee. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon powder for flavor to this mix and pack in jars tied with colorful ribbons. 3 tablespoons in a cup of water will make instant cappuccino. Make sure that you tell the receivers of these gifts how to use your instant tea and coffee mixes.

Gourmet cooking is definitely not as easy as regular cooking. The main reason behind this is that it involves a lot of preparation time, since every little thing that goes inside a gourmet recipe has to be just perfect. As regular cooks, you might never have mastered the techniques used for gourmet cooking, so we will provide you here with a list of the tips and tricks that you need to learn before you perfect your gourmet cooking style. Please keep in mind that our list of tips and tricks is simply indicative and not exhaustive at all!

• All gourmet cooking recipes require the best quality ingredients. So if you have been one of those people who thought that herbs grew in little plastic packets and jars and that vegetables come from freezers, then you will need some practice fast. If you are seriously into gourmet cooking, then start visiting the fresh produce areas of the supermarket to source your herbs and vegetables fresh. You will be able to get the best quality ingredients from farmers’ or fresh produce markets. Even if you cannot frequent such markets regularly, go there initially to at least find out how fresh, fresh is.

• You must have seen on television shows how the cooks always dice vegetables into equal cubes and julienne them as if they have used a tape measure to measure every cut and julienned vegetable piece. Alas, if you do not have practice, you might not be able to cut vegetables into such equal portions even if you use a tape measure. However, to start with, watch the cooks on TV when they chop. You will notice that to dice veggies into equal cubes, the chef will first cut out a 1cm thick strip of the vegetable, then slice lengthwise to get veg strips that are 1cm wide and 1 cm thick. Then he will chop these strips into equal parts that measure 1 cm on all sides. Definitely not tough but it will take time and practice to get such perfect results.

• Seafood is a crucial ingredient of many gourmet cooking recipes. But you might find yourself at a loss when a recipe calls for boneless prawns and salmons. After all, most regular supermarkets will not be stocking this, and no fresh produce mart will give these for sure. So you will have to learn to use tweezers or needle nosed pliers to pull the bones out of salmon fillets. In order to shell prawn, you will have to hold it tightly by the body and twist the head off. This will let you remove the whole shell easily.

• In order to be a proper gourmet cook, you will need to equip your kitchen with gourmet cooking tools and accessories. You will regularly keep coming across gourmet cooking recipes that call for basting roast meat with butter or fruits with egg whites. So you will need to equip yourself with brushes for this purpose. Similarly, you will need to stock up on a number of cookware pieces ranging from specialized spoons and knives to pans and cookers. Remember that having the right tools and cookware is crucial to the success of your gourmet cooking recipes.