Quick & Healthy Holiday Gift Ideas to Make with Your Kids

Baking with your children at Christmas time is a wonderful way to create last-minute homemade holiday gifts while teaching health and nutrition. Gather your kids around the kitchen table to make an assortment of healthy muffins, flavorful cooking oils and quick breads for Christmas gift-giving.

Some of the best Christmas baked-goods we've made and gifted over the years were actually very simple quick-breads recipes. Have your kids decorate the festive breads prior to baking with nuts, raisins, Craisins and poppy, sesame or sunflower seeds as necessary. All the mini-loaf and muffin recipes are available online or can be found in most cook books.

Not explained in cook books however, is the importance of purchasing silver cupcake liners and mini-loaf bread-baking pans available at most grocery stores. These inexpensive aluminum baking items are sold in pairs or sets and go straight from the oven to a sturdy gift presentation, without any messy pan removal. Once cooled, your baked goods in silver mini-loaf pans and muffin cups are easily wrapped in clear cellophane and bow-tied for immediate gift giving.

Try making healthy gift-bread favorites (recipes online) such as banana-nut, pumpkin-pecan spice, pineapple persimmon, lemon poppy-seed or orange-glazed cranberry-walnut (recipe at Bisquick.com). After filling the mini-loaf bread pans, pour remaining batter into muffin tins for a variety of muffin gifting assortments.

As muffins are healthy versions of cupcakes, children enjoy making and decorating them for gift giving. Have your kids add appropriate dried fruits, seeds, nuts and/or oat toppings prior to baking so they won't fall off. And try adding versatile cornbread muffins to round out your assortment.

Make your own cornbread muffin creations by using inexpensive packages of Jiffy Cornbread mix and adding colorful ingredients to the batter. Try making my Sweet Jalapeno-Cheese Cornbread muffins by combining with either mild green chilies or hot jalapeno peppers and grated cheese. Only fill paper-lined muffin tins half full to allow for rising and topping expansion without messes.

Making sure your kids wash their hands, have them decorate cornbread muffins (before baking) with an assortment of grated cheese toppings, fresh diced sweet red and green bell peppers, grated zucchini, green and red chilies or pimentos and olives on top. Bake according to package instructions and allow them to cool prior to arranging on a decorative platter and wrapping with clear cellophane and ribbons.

Flavored oils will only need ribbons or a decorative bow tied festively around the bottle's neck, are not only fun to make and gift, but are delightfully aromatic to cook with. You'll need to purchase olive oil and grape-seed oil in large cost-effective quantities as well as tall, inexpensive decorator bottles with mouths (and lids) wide enough to slip a whole cinnamon stick through. Pour oils into the bottles and have your children help by adding the ingredients listed below, watching them float to the bottom.

Healthy flavored "baking" oils will require two to four whole cinnamon sticks, several whole-clove florets and walnut or pecan halves dropped into bottles filled with grape-seed oil. For flavor-enhanced "frying" oils place several peeled garlic cloves, tall herb sprigs of dill, rosemary and thyme dropped into olive-oil filled bottles. The oils will preserve the additional ingredients however will need refrigeration.

Refrigerate all wrapped edible gifts prior to gift exchanges to insure freshness and teach your kids about food safety. Enjoy Christmas baking time with your kids who will have fun helping you create quick breads, muffins and flavored oils for last minute gift-giving and memory making.