Our favourite gifts for foodies
Got a friend/parent/sibling/partner’s birthday coming up? The best gifts are always the foodie ones. Here are our ten favourite ideas to inspire you.
Sprinkle watch
We love this super colourful watch, decorated with a sprinkling of delicious hundreds and thousands. It reminds us of childhood birthday cakes and making a mess in the kitchen. It’s a unisex watch, with chunky neon pink hour and minute hands, and a stylish white second hand. There’s also an inconspicuous day and date function, and you’ll be pleased to know that the sprinkles cover both the watch face and the entire plastic strap. It’s comfortable on the wrist, if a little chunkier than your average women’s watch.
If hundreds and thousands aren’t your thing, there’s also a macaron version (called ‘Sweet Explosion’) with neon orange hands, or an equally cool Liquorice Allsorts watch (called ‘Lekker’). Both make our mouth water.
Price: £44.50 from watchshop.com
Rolling hills lunch bag
“You’re never too old for a packed lunch,” say Anorak, designers of this funky lunch bag. There are three things we love about this particular ‘lunch box’: it’s got a handle and strap, so it’s easy to carry whilst on the go; it’s bigger than your average box (a four litre capacity), allowing for a bottle of water, or an extra sarnie each day; and the green rolling hills pattern is reminiscent of picnics.
Anorak lunch boxes are insulated to keep the contents cool for four hours. Plus if you don’t like the hills, there’s also a ‘kissing rabbits’ (white and orange) and ‘kissing horses’ pattern (blue and white) available to buy. Also included in their snazzy picnicware range are matching picnic blankets, cool bags, a beautiful picnic hamper, and melamine beakers, plates and bowls.
Price: £18 from anorakonline.co.uk
Very posh Tuscan food
If you’re buying for a food snob, or someone who just loves quality ingredients, then check out Emozioni Food. They sell a range of innovative Italian speciality foods, and are influenced by ‘luxury, modern art and fashion’. Indeed, even their jams are sold in what looks like posh face cream pots, as opposed to bog standard glass jars.
Everything is grown organically in Tuscany. Our favourite products include their organic white truffle honey (delicious with Gorgonzola and Parmesan cheese, or with desserts such as vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate mousse); Paccheri semolina pasta, which comes from Apulia, the most famous Italian region for fresh pasta; and the finest sliced and dried Porcini mushrooms. Ingredients like these come at a price, but they’re bound to impress your foodie friend.
Price: Range from £5.90 to £26.50 from emozionifood.co.uk
Coffee machine
We’ve done the hard work for you here. In April this year team lovefood pitted eight different coffee/espresso makers against each other, and reported on the results. We’ve recommended colourful filter coffee machines, bean-to-cup machines, and fancy Nespresso capsule machines.
The Nespresso Maestria came first, but if you’re looking for something cheaper than £315-odd, try the fabulous second-place Cuisinart Grind & Brew Plus (£150). It was the only machine in our line-up which could grind beans and turn them into coffee, and as a result it released the best aroma of the lot.
Another option is the Morphy Richards Espresso machine. It was the cheapest of our espresso machines at £99, and one of the best performers. The perfect option for someone who prefers espressos to taller coffees.
The smoking gun
The machine produces cold smoke at the touch of a button, so you can transform all manner of foods without changing their texture. Try it with cheese, salads, shellfish, butter, chocolate… or how about a smoky Bloody Mary? The gun comes with a tub of hickory and apple wood chips to smoke, but you can also experiment with other flavours such as tea, spices or dried flowers.
Price: £69.99 from Lakeland
Retro Popcorn Maker
Check out the Gourmet Gadgetry website if you’re buying for someone who likes to have fun in the kitchen. They sell everything from pie makers to chocolate fountains and waffle makers, but our favourite gift of the lot is their Retro Popcorn Maker.
It can create warm, fluffy popcorn in less than three minutes – all you have to do is spoon the kernels into the ‘popper’ mechanism at the top of the machine, and press ‘go’. It uses just hot air to transform the kernels into popcorn, which makes it a great healthy snack option. Although, of course, you can sprinkle your resulting popcorn with sugar and salt afterwards, or maybe drizzle it with a little caramel sauce. We’ve actually got one of these in the lovefood kitchen – here it is in action:
The machine itself is a lovely old-fashioned-cinema-seat red colour, and it’s also quite dinky, so won’t take up too much room on your kitchen worktop.
Price: £27.95 from gourmetgadgetry.com
Vision toaster
The extra wide slot is suitable for all breads and buns, and there’s even a one sided ‘bagel browning’ function. Plus it comes in a range of funky colours, including brushed steel, cream, yellow, pink, orange and blue. We really, really want one.
Price: £117.45 – £130.46, depending on colour, from John Lewis
TeaStorks
The ‘posh tea’ market has boomed over the past few years – we have so many blends to choose from. TeaStorks are one of the first companies to offer a tea delivery service, including in each box 15 biodegradable pyramid teabags filled with loose leaf tea. The boxes, which are made using sustainable sources, can be sent out weekly, monthly, or just as a one-off.
There are three different blends per box, and you can chose from seven different options. ‘The Perfect Day’, for example, includes ‘alarm clock’ (to kick-start your day); ‘royal Earl Grey’ (to keep you going through the afternoon); and ‘Egyptian chamomile’, to help you unwind in the evening. Or if herbal teas are more your thing, maybe opt for the ‘Guilt-Free’ box, which includes ‘sun-drenched vanilla rooibos’, ‘five-a-day’, and ‘peppermint eclipse’, all of which are caffeine and sugar-free. How about a one-off box for a friend? Or, if they’re really special, a monthly subscription for a year?
Price: From £5.45 per box
3D Safari cookie cutters
Great fun! These novelty cookie cutters allow the baker to make 3D elephants, hippos, lions and giraffes. Just cut out your cookie dough, and after the cookies have baked and cooled, slot the different parts together to make your animal.
Each pack includes cutters for the body parts required to bake a whole safari animal. Personally, we think the elephant makes the most impressive cookie.
Price: £6.49 per box from The Kitchen Gift Company
Fortnum & Mason Piccadilly Hamper
Treat your loved one to a Fortnum & Mason hamper, for the reasonable price of £50. The Piccadilly Hamper, which is where the famous store started more than three centuries ago, is appropriately themed… there’s a jar of Piccadilly Piccalilli, packed with crunchy summer vegetables; preserves made the traditional way so that you can really taste the strawberries, damsons and raspberries; loose-leaf teas in beautiful little tins; a particularly smooth milk chocolate bar; and a tin of Lemon Curd Piccadilly Biscuits, crumbly and sweet. All in all, a truly capital feast.
Price: £50 from Fortnum & Mason
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