Christmas on the Cheap: Mix it up

December 22, 2012 by Julie @ Outtakes on the Outskirts | 3 Comments

Last post of my Christmas on the Cheap series. Anyone else feeling the mad Christmas rush yet?

If you don’t have time to bake or make sweets for gifts, this is the next best thing – gifting baking mixes! It’s still homemade goodness, just without the cooking time. I would call that a win.

Making giftable baking mixes is beyond easy. Take the dry ingredients for any recipe, place in a container with an attached card for cooking instructions, finish with a ribbon. Boom. Done.

What I like about making baking mixes is that you can customize the ingredients for the person. If you have a gluten-free friend/relative, you can adapt a mix for that person. Someone watching salt or sugar? You can fix that too.

I made a chocolate chip pancake mix to give as a gift this year. I used my regular pancake recipe and left out the milk, egg and oil. I used the holiday Ziploc containers that are out this year, tied it with a pretty red ribbon, and printed out the recipe on cardstock using Microsoft Publisher. I used fancy scrapbooking edging scissors to cut out the card.

You can place your mixes in plastic bags, Mason jars, plastic containers, etc. If you have time, glass spaghetti jars with their lids painted in festive colors work well too (and you’re recycling!).

Mixes don’t have to be limited to baking either. Maybe you have a secret spice mixture you like to use for grilling. Maybe you’d like give homemade scouring powder or dishwasher detergent. Maybe you grow your own herbs and have a killer blend for tea. Maybe you’re a gardener and have a formula for homemade, chemical-free bug repellent. There are a lot of possibilities with this.

Here are a few recipes I’ve posted that you can use for your mixes, and I’ll link a few other handy ones as well. Just leave out the wet/perishable ingredients like milk, oil and eggs and you’ve got yourself a gift!

From me:

Chocolate banana bread

Caramel apple granola bars

Pumpkin pancakes

Strawberry bread

From other, smarter people:

Homemade Bisquick mix from Food.com

Pioneer Woman’s Knock you Naked Brownies

Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake from Joy the Baker

Gluten-free blueberry muffins from Gluten-Free Girl