Gifts for when you’ve run out of gift ideas

Not to blow my own horn, but I am an excellent gift-giver. I am thoughtful, I listen carefully when people tell me what kind of things they like and what their favorite memories are. I’m creative. Probably eight out of 10 times, I knock it out of the park.

I realize this makes me something of an outlier; most people have one or possibly two solid gift ideas in a given holiday season, then they find themselves emotionally exhausted. If you are feeling a little gassed-out creativity-wise this holiday season, here are two suggestions for food and drink gifts that are affordable and quirky and probably won’t be put into a closet somewhere.

Geographic cookies

You have probably never thought too much about cookie cutters, but you can buy them in almost any shape, including any state or province you can name.

Manitoba? Boom! Six dollars on Etsy. West Virginia? Shazam! $7.99 on Amazon.

You know that lady at work who’s really nice, but you don’t really know anything about her, except that she grew up in Toledo? Give her a plate of Ohio sugar cookies, with a mini-M&Ms glued more or less in the area of Toledo with melted chocolate. Did your family go on vacation in Chicago this summer? You can get the state of Illinois, or the skyline of the city.

Thoughtful, edible, and you’ll only be out a couple of hours of your time and maybe $10.

Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

Based on the King Arthur Roll-Out Sugar Cookies recipe, available at kingarthurbaking.com, which they credit to blogger Amanda Rettke. (As opposed to the several other sugar cookie and sugar cookie-adjacent recipes they have; baking for someone gluten-free or paleo? They have that too). It’s a very large recipe — three sticks of butter, five cups of flour — and I like that it has many of the ingredients listed in grams as well as cups. I halved it, made a batch of cookies to share at work and still have dough in reserve. The original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of almond extract, but I have replaced that with Fiori di Sicilia, a King Arthur flavoring they describe as having bright citrus and warm vanilla flavors and that makes the cookies taste like a creamsicle. Be careful with the measuring; I spoke to a King Arthur recipe developer months back and she said too heavy a hand with Fiori Di Sicilia will make everything taste like perfume.

• 12 Tablespoons (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup (198.5 grams) of granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon King Arthur Fiori di Sicilia
• 2½ cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and yolk one at a time, beating after each addition.

Slowly add the extracts (with the mixer on low) and mix until combined, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Sift together flour, salt and baking powder.

With the mixer on low, slowly add to the butter mixture and mix until just combined.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours (or overnight).

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment.

Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut out cookies. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until they start to turn golden on the edges and the center doesn’t look moist.

Bottle of pre-mixed cocktails

Depending on whom you’re giving it to, booze is always a good call.

Find a nice bottle. It could even be an empty liquor bottle that you were about to put in the recycling. Wash it out and remove the label.

If it’s a paper label, soak the bottle in hot water and scrape the label off with the back of a butter knife. If there’s any glue residue left behind, a citrus-based cleaner like Goof-Off will take care of it. Martha Stewart suggests using a hair dryer to soften the glue. Once, I had a really nice bottle but the label had actually been painted on. I soaked it in vinegar overnight, and it came right off. I imagine nail-polish remover would do the same thing.

Before you remove the label, write down how big the bottle is ― how many fluid ounces or milliliters.

Find a cocktail recipe that you think your friend would like ― A Peanut Butter and Jelly Sour, for instance:

• 2 ounces Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
• 3 ounces Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine
• 1 ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice

Normally you would shake this over ice, then pour it into a glass and drink it. But this time we’re going to do some math. (Don’t worry ― there aren’t any exponents or variables involved.)

How many ounces of ingredients go into one drink? 3+3+1=5. Five ounces.

Remember your empty liquor bottle? How much did it hold? I’ll bet it was 750 milliliters, wasn’t it? That’s equal to about 25 fluid ounces, or five PB&J Sours. Multiply everything by five (10 ounces, 15 ounces and 5 ounces) and use a funnel to pour it into your nice bottle. Screw the cap on ― or put a cork in it, if you’re fancy ― give it a shake, and you’re off the hook present-wise for another year. You don’t even have to wrap it ― just write a tag and tie it on with rough twine, and you’ll look classy.

Ideally the recipient will ask you to stay and drink it with them. And maybe eat some cookies.

Featured photo: NH sugar cookies. Photo by John Fladd.