Grandparents and parents a like love a homemade gift, even friends and aunts and uncles. Here are some great and easy sweets to make. Whether you want to place them in a homemade box or brought box to give as a present or even WOW! factor on christmas day to serve your own superb truffles with port and wine or coffee. They are so easy even the kids can make them.

In order to make things like truffles for instance its always a good idea to have a range of mixing bowls to hand in your kitchen. I have a selection of ceramic and stainless steel and I use some for baking and others for whisking etc so make sure you have a range to assist you in a wider range of cooking. Another great gift idea is to take a good mixing bowl and fill it with ingredients for a dish, cake or something like biscuits or truffles. Cover with cellophane and a ribbon and a great gift for the little and large cooks in your family or friends.

Chocolate Chestnut Truffles - 120ml double cream, 275g plain chocolate, 15g butter, 2 tblsp brandy or rum, 175g unsweetened chestnut puree, 50g unsalted pistachio nuts finely chopped, 1 tblsp sifted icing sugar, 2 tblsp cocoa sifted. Put cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil, remove from heat and add chocolate and stir until melted, add the buuter, brandy or rum and mix well. Pour the mixture into a bowl and refridgerate for at least 2 hours, until it starts to firm up. Beat the chestnut puree until smooth and fold into the chocolate mixture and refridgerate again until firm. Dust your hands with a little icing sugar and taking small amounts roll in to ball shapes the size of a walnut. Roll 1/3rd of the truffles in pistachio nuts, 1/3rd in icing sugar and 1/3rd in cocoa then return to the fridge to firm up before serving or boxing. (Keep refridgerated)

Cream Truffles - Melt 225 broken dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Then stir in 142ml Double cream, 2 tblsp Tia Maria and 2 tsp instant coffee until dissolved. Chill in the fridge for about an hour until firm, then shape spoonfuls in to balls and roll in cocoa, white, dark and milk chocolate shavings and store in the fridge until needed.

For an alternative to the above use white chocolate and replace the tia maria and coffee with 2 tblsp of Malibu Coconut liqueur. You can then roll and coat in coconut or white chocolate shavings/fine gratings.

Tasty Truffles - Another version which my lot enjoy is this one including cake crumbs if you have some left over from making your trifles (see my earlier blog 6/12/08 terrific trifles). Melt 150g broken dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simering water. Meanwhile mix together 100g cake crumbs like madeira and 50g ground almonds. Stir in the dissolved coffee liquid made up of 1 heaped tsp instant coffee in 1 tblsp hot water and 2 tblsp amaretta liqueur, rum or brandy. Pour in the melted chocolate and stir well. Chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes and form mixture in to small balls by hand. Roll some in cocoa powder, some in chopped almonds, Some in chocolate or coconut. Pack your sweets in a box or cellophane and store in the fridge. If you did want a non-alcoholic truffle you can replace the alcohol with orange juice and roll in orange one hundred and thousands.

Enjoy yourself and have fun let the children experiment if they are helping too and let them decorate homemade boxes with snowmen and santas etc!