A homemade Christmas hamper works best when it contains things the recipient makes themselves, rather than a basket of shop-bought jars they will politely work through by March. Build it around two or three making kits, add the fresh bits they will need and a few good extras from your own kitchen, and you have given a January of projects instead of an afternoon of snacks.
It is also the rare gift that scales. One kit and a nice loaf is a lovely small hamper for a neighbour; three kits, a board and a bottle is a serious family present. This is how to choose the contents, what to add around them, how to pack it so it looks like a hamper rather than a bag of shopping, and when to start ordering.
What should go in a make-your-own hamper?
Think of it in four layers, and buy in that order.
- The projects. Two or three kits that produce different sorts of thing: something savoury, something spicy, something for the fridge.
- The missing ingredients. Each kit needs one thing from the shops, and supplying it is what turns a box into an invitation.
- The supporting cast. Bread, crackers, chutney, a bottle, coffee. The things they will eat alongside what they make.
- The finishing touches. A board, a tea towel, labels, a pen. Small, cheap, and they make the hamper look considered.
The temptation is to fill the basket with as many jars as it will hold. Resist it. A hamper with three good ideas in it beats a hamper with fourteen items and no theme.
Which three kits make the best hamper?
These three cover a lot of ground between them, and none of them needs specialist equipment.
Cheese, for the centrepiece. The Beginner's Cheese Kit supplies the specialist ingredients you cannot buy in a supermarket: vegetarian rennet, citric acid, cheese salt, a cheesecloth and a booklet that runs from easiest to hardest. The recipient adds fresh whole milk, a large stainless steel pan and an hour, and gets ricotta, mozzarella and mascarpone with burrata and goat's cheese to work up to. Warm homemade mozzarella between Christmas and New Year is a genuinely good use of the quiet week.
Chilli sauce, for the one who likes heat. The Chilli Sauce Making Kit makes seven different sauces at varying heat levels from six dried chillies and flakes, and includes a mini sieve, grip-seal bags, tasting pipettes, gloves and kraft labels. Each recipe needs a few fresh ingredients from a normal shop, and every sauce it makes is vegan, gluten free and lactose free, which makes it the easiest kit to give without knowing somebody's diet.
Bacon, for the show-off. The Bacon Making Kit turns a piece of pork belly into proper dry-cured streaky bacon, flavoured three ways: chilli and garlic, juniper and fennel, and pancetta. It is dry-cured and air-dried rather than wet-cured and pumped with water, so it crisps in the pan instead of leaking and shrinking. Nothing else in the hamper will generate as much conversation.
What should you add around the kits?
The supporting items are where a hamper stops feeling like a delivery and starts feeling like a gift.
- The fresh bits. A couple of litres of whole milk for the cheese, or a voucher for it if the hamper is travelling. Never UHT, which will not curdle.
- Bread and crackers. Oatcakes for the fresh cheeses, a good soft loaf for the bacon sandwiches that are coming.
- Something to eat it with. A jar of chutney, a pot of honey, some good olives.
- A drink. A bottle of something, or a bag of properly good coffee for the mornings after.
- A board and a cloth. A small wooden board and a decent tea towel cost little and make the hamper look complete.
- Labels and a marker. So the sauces and the cheeses get named and dated. It sounds fussy right up until there are four unmarked bottles in the fridge door.
If you want the hamper to have a narrative, write a card that sets out an order: cheese first because it takes an hour, hot sauce on the Sunday, bacon started on the Monday so it is ready for the following weekend. People genuinely appreciate being told where to begin.
How do you pack it so it looks the part?
Start with a container worth keeping. A wicker basket, a wooden crate, an enamel roasting tin or a canvas bag all beat a cardboard box, and they become the gift's afterlife rather than its packaging.
Line it with something soft: shredded paper, a tea towel or a length of hessian. Then build in height order, tallest at the back, and place items at slight angles so labels face outwards, which is the entire trick professional hampers use. Fill the gaps with the small things rather than letting them rattle about, and tuck a sprig of rosemary or a cinnamon stick into a corner for the smell when the lid comes off.
Wrap the whole thing in cellophane only if you are posting it; otherwise a wide ribbon and a proper tag look better and are easier to undo. And keep the shape flat enough that the recipient can see everything at once, because half the pleasure of a hamper is the first look.
When should you start building it?
Earlier than you think, but not by much. The kits themselves are patient, since we aim for at least twelve months on the best before date, so buying in November is perfectly sensible. Ordering everything in one go is also cheaper: our kits are hand-packed in Britain and UK delivery is free over 15 pounds.
What needs timing is the fresh element. Buy bread, milk and anything perishable in the last day or two, and if the hamper is being posted rather than handed over, leave the fresh items out entirely and put a note in their place. The making kits will keep happily until the recipient is ready, which is the whole advantage of a hamper built around projects rather than around perishables.
Homemade hamper FAQs
How many kits should go in one hamper?
Two or three is the sweet spot. More than that and the hamper starts to feel like a challenge rather than a present, and the later kits tend to sit unopened.
Do the kits work for someone with dietary restrictions?
Several do. All seven sauces from the chilli kit are vegan, gluten free and lactose free, the cheese kits use vegetarian rennet so the cheeses are vegetarian and gluten free, and the bacon kit contains no gluten or dairy ingredients.
Can I post a hamper with making kits in it?
Yes, as long as you leave out anything fresh or perishable. The kits themselves travel well and keep for months.
What if the recipient has never made anything before?
That is rather the point. Every kit is designed for complete beginners, with a step by step booklet, and the recipes start with the easiest.
Can I send the kits straight to the recipient instead?
Yes. Enter their address as the delivery address at checkout, though for a hamper you will usually want everything sent to you so you can pack it yourself.
Building one this year? Browse our gift kits and pick the projects first.
