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Christmas Gift Guide

At Dr. Oetker, we know that Christmas is full of meaningful moments, from spending time with family and friends to opening presents under the tree.

What better way to spread the festive cheer than baking your loved-ones some delicious, homemade treats to show you care? Not only will you have fun making them, but you can share and enjoy them together – and it’s far more meaningful than a present bought from a shop.

Whether you’re a regular baker or a kitchen newbie, all it takes is a few little tips to turn your yummy Christmas bakes into gift-worthy showstoppers. Dr. Oetker has created the ultimate Christmas gift guide to help you do just that!

Scratch & Win Competition\n\nThe Christmas Holiday Season is a time of giving, so we have decided to introduce a Scratch to Win Competition!\nWe have a series of prizes to giveaway over the month of November & December which you can enter daily. \nFor your chance to win click here, enter your details and scratch the box to see if you have won. You didn't win a prize? No problem! Enjoy some of our exclusive baking tips and tricks instead.\nPrizes include:\n Dr.Oetker Hampers packed full of Baking Goodies, Baking Vouchers, Shopping Vouchers, Free Products & more! \nCompetition open from 16th November until the 19th December 2022, terms & conditions apply.\n\n\n\n\nMaking pralines and chocolates yourself\n\nWhile you can create small, beautiful works of art out of chocolate, it’s important to work with the material first, so that everything’s perfect when you’re done. To start with, couvertures should always be used, as they’re the finest form of cocoa. Other types of chocolate often contain added fats, which can become clumpy during the tempering process. The temperature, equipment and a little patience are also important.

Chocolate Bars

Chocolate Truffles

A showstopper chocolatey cake for Christmas!

Christmas Chocolate Tree Cake

Chocolate & Ginger Biscuit Tart

The perfect Christmas treat with marzipan

Marzipan pralines

Hot Chocolate on a stick

Equipment

Thermometer

Bain-marie

Cooling rack

Praline shells

Chocolate bar moulds

Proper tempering\n\n\nThe couverture needs to be melted before it can be used to coat pralines or create confectionery or be poured into chocolate bar moulds. Proper tempering is essential, as the chocolate can otherwise clump, lose its gloss or even have a whitish tinge after cooling. \nTo start with, heat around 80% of the couverture to 40 to 45 degrees in a bain-marie. Especially when it comes to white couverture, this temperature should never be exceeded, as the milk protein could otherwise flocculate.\nThen remove the melted couverture from the cooker and gradually add the remaining finely chopped couverture until the mass cools to approximately 26 to 28 degrees.  \nThen return the melted couverture to the bain-marie and heat it to a processing temperature of 29 to 33 degrees, stirring at all times.\n\n\nCooling\n\nAllow the chocolate to fully cool before trying the delicious creations or giving them as a gift. Any location is suitable, provided the temperature does not exceed 20 degrees and it’s relatively free of moisture and dust and protected from the sun.
The chocolate now needs to be left alone and shouldn’t be carried around or touched. It should take around two hours to cool and will contract in the process. The chocolate is usually easy to remove from the mould.\n\n\n\nStorage\n\nChocolate should be stored in a dry location that’s not too warm or cold. White chocolate, in particular, can absorb smells and should therefore be packed airtight or stored at a safe distance from foods with an intense aroma such as cheese and onions.

What form should it take?

Chocolate gifts can take a whole host of forms and come in many different colours. If pralines are too complicated and chocolate bars too simple, you just might find something here to inspire you.

Hot chocolate \n\nHot chocolate is a cinch to make yourself. Simply temper couverture and add it to a mould that would fit inside a cup. Small, washed-out yogurt pots, for example, are perfect. Now insert a wooden stick such as an ice pop stick and allow to cool. Alternatively, you could use a cinnamon stick, which not only looks good, but also adds a unique flavour.\n\nLiqueur\n\nA variety of spirits such as rum and amaretto can be used to create your very own liqueur. Example of a basic recipe for a creamy liqueur:\n1 egg, 100 ml heavy cream, 100 ml condensed milk, 30 g sugar, the seeds of a vanilla pod, 100 ml spirit such as amaretto, 50 grams chocolate\nMelt the chocolate with the sugar and condensed milk in a saucepan. Then add the egg and allow the mix to thicken on a medium heat. Now add the cream and spirit and allow the whole mix to thicken again for approximately 5 minutes – don’t forget to stir! \n\n\nCake pops\n\nCake pops are usually made from cake mixed, for instance, with cream cheese to create a malleable mass. These balls are then placed on wooden sticks, allowed to cool and then coated with chocolate or icing and creatively decorated.\n\nBiscuits\n\nBiscuits of all kinds are always a wonderful gift, whether traditional, in crazy shapes or with wild decorations.

Decoration

Something entirely new: creative combinations\nBlackberry and gin pralines
Early Grey pralines 
Speculoos hot chocolate with cinnamon stick
Whiskey and salted-caramel filling
Thyme and vanilla chocolate\n\nWhen it comes to decoration, the sky’s the limit! For example, you can mix various chocolate varieties together, create fillings with or without alcohol, and dust or sprinkle with sugar. Suitable delicious toppings could include:\n\nMarshmallows
Sugar pearls
Spices (cinnamon, chilli flakes and peppercorns are very popular)
Chocolate sprinkles
Herbs (rosemary, for example, is especially eye-catching)
Dried berries (goji berries add an exciting flavour)
Edible flowers
Nuts
Pistachios
Flakes of sea salt

Sustainable Packaging

As everyone knows, giving gifts is lots of fun! But it can be even more fun if you make the gifts yourself and package them with love. There’s plenty of packaging that’s easy to make yourself, which saves money and is usually better for the environment.\n\nPaper bags\n\nPaper lunch bags are perfect for packaging chocolate bars and can be painted or decorated beforehand. But you could also go for an understated look, adding a ribbon of natural fibre so that the chocolate can steal the show. \n\nCardboard boxes \n\nYou can either fold cardboard boxes yourself or buy them finished. What makes them so special is the decoration, which could be, for example, beautiful water colours or writing. And if you weren’t blessed with flawless penmanship, simply opt for a stamp, which can also be used to achieve wonderful effects.\n\nTins\n\nTins can be found in most home decor shops and are ideal for filled pralines in particular, which can be arranged in rows and protected from outside forces. The tin can store the pralines and then be used again.\n \nJars\n\nCarefully wash out old jam jars and fill them with small treats. You can either glue the lid or wrap it with fabric. Small flip-top bottles are ideal for gifting liqueur and can be adorned with bows and a small handwritten tag.

The best-known praline varieties are:\n\nTruffles: Traditional truffles are balls of chocolate with a filling of chocolate, cream and flavours such as coffee, vanilla and whisky. \nBelgian pralines: These are made from a mix of dark and milk chocolate and traditionally filled with nougat.\nMozartkugeln: A time-honoured Salzburg speciality invented by confectioner Paul Fürst in 1890. In addition to chocolate, the traditional recipe also contains pistachio, marzipan and nougat.\n\nWell-known varieties of confectionery include:\n\nPetit four: Petits fours are traditional French confectionery, with a distinction made between dry petits fours secs and glazed petits fours frais. Both are cut from puff pastry, filled with creams or marzipan and, in some cases, beautifully glazed.\nRum balls: These are balls covered in chocolate sprinkles and made from fat, sugar, chocolate, cocoa and rum (or rum flavour). They’re small, as heavy as bricks and wonderfully delicious. \n