There's nothing quite as special as receiving something your friend or loved one made with their own two hands. From savory beef jerky to sweet holiday cookies and pies, we've compiled a list of can't miss DIY treats and recipes. Give them as a gift, or bring them to your next holiday party (and become the star of the show).
Holiday Gift Guide
Homemade Gifts and Holiday Recipes
DIY Gifts are the Best Way to Show You Truly Care
DIY Gifts
-
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
We’re huge fans of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread, but as with almost anything, homemade is even better than store-bought.
-
Preserved Lemons
Lemons that have been preserved in salt have a bright citrus flavor, balanced by brininess and sourness, that can add depth and nuance to all sorts of dishes, perhaps most famously to Moroccan tagines.
-
Bread-and-Butter Pickles
We wanted a bread-and-butter pickle with a crisp texture and a balance of sweet and sour—perfect for adding to a char-grilled burger.
-
Warm-Spiced Pecans with Rum Glaze
We discovered how to get maximum flavor with minimum mess.
-
Paleo Nut and Seed Granola
Oats and sugar, key ingredients in most granolas, are not part of the paleo diet, so we set out to find a way to make crave-worthy granola without them.
Cookies
-
Foolproof Holiday Cookies
Rolling out cookie dough is a sticky business. Most recipes add excess flour, and the resulting cookies are tough. Could we make tender, crispy cookies that roll out easily?
-
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
These eye-catching cookies are as much about looks as they are about flavor. The problem is, most are neither chocolaty nor crinkly.
-
Gingersnaps
What’s the secret to gingersnaps that combine bold spice flavor and real snap? To begin with, there’s getting rid of all that moisture.
-
Chewy Sugar Cookies
Everyone thinks it’s easy to make classic buttery-tasting sugar cookies that are crisp at the edges and chewy in the center. Everyone is wrong.
-
Pecan or Walnut Crescent Cookies
Superfine sugar and a combination of finely chopped and ground nuts yield tender, delicate, nutty cookies.
-
Soft and Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies
Dry, tasteless molasses cookies belong on a Christmas tree, not in a cookie jar. We made more than 50 batches to find the best recipe for an uncommonly soft, chewy cookie with warm, tingling spices.
-
Brown Sugar Cookies
A chewy cookie with a crisp exterior and a big jolt of brown sugar flavor sounded easy to develop, but first we needed to understand the not-so-simple science of cookies.
-
Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
We set out to perfect the back-of-the-bag classic with a cookie that was crisp at the edges, chewy in the middle, and full of rich toffee flavor.
-
Florentine Lace Cookies
The easy part about these cookies is that most of the work takes place in a saucepan. The harder part? Perfecting their delicate lacy shape and glossy chocolate coating.
-
French Butter Cookies (Sables)
These French butter cookies offer sophistication and style from simple pantry ingredients. That is, if you can capture their elusive sandy texture.
-
Classic Chewy Oatmeal Cookies
Knowingly or not, most folks use the cookie recipe from the Quaker canister. We wanted a cookie that was chewier, moister, and easier to make.
-
Ultranutty Pecan Bars
By banishing the custard filling in favor of a topping that emphasizes the pecan’s nutty richness, we made this bar cookie simpler, too.
-
Snickerdoodles
With their crinkly tops, slightly tangy flavor, and liberal dusting of cinnamon sugar, chewy snickerdoodles are a New England favorite.
-
Spritz Cookies
That golden-swirled kiss of a holiday cookie often ends up bland, gummy, and tasteless. Why can't spritz cookies taste as good as they look?
Pies
-
Chocolate Cream Pie
Two kinds of chocolate and Oreo cookies produce a pie with rich chocolate flavor and an easy-to-slice crust.
-
Perfect Pecan Pie
After patiently scouring dozens of recipes, we finally create a pie with silky smooth texture, rich pralinelike flavor, and a crisp crust.
-
Cast-Iron Apple Pie
There is nothing quite like a perfect apple pie.
-
Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie
Our gluten-free version of this seasonal favorite boasts the most flavorful pumpkin pie filling we had ever tasted.
-
Skillet Apple Pie
A simple, old-fashioned dessert called apple pandowdy promises apple pie appeal with none of the fuss. Is it time for an apple pie makeover?
-
The Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie
This is the ultimate lemon meringue pie: a crisp crust, a firm, lush filling, and a no-weep meringue.
-
Pumpkin Pie
The best thing about pumpkin pie shouldn't be that you only have to eat it once a year. If any Thanksgiving tradition deserves a fresh approach, it’s this one.
-
Deep-Dish Apple Pie
We wanted mounds of tender, juicy apples in our deep-dish pie, but first we had to wade through half-baked apples, soupy fillings, and sodden crusts.
Cakes and Cupcakes
-
Chocolate-Caramel Layer Cake
The cake and frosting we weren’t worried about. But a caramel filling that was complex in flavor and spreadable, yet thick enough not to ooze out? That was another matter.
-
Raspberry Charlotte
Cake surrounding creamy fruit mousse promises the best of old-world elegance. But it doesn’t matter how gorgeous it looks if the filling is rubbery and the cake is tough.
-
Bittersweet Chocolate Roulade or Yule Log
We created a cake that is easy to roll but still moist, tender, and full of chocolate flavor. With the cream, ganache, and mushrooms, this cake also makes the ultimate yule log cake.
-
Coconut Layer Cake
A triumvirate of coconut products puts maximum coconut flavor in this classic, tender cake.
-
Foolproof New York Cheesecake
Our recipe produced lush texture and a beautiful brown top—but not for everyone. To solve this mystery, we had to delve into the secrets of ovens.
-
The Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake
Just three ingredients--whipped whole eggs, a good-quality semisweet chocolate, and butter--will yield dense, rich texture and true chocolate flavor.
-
Chocolate-Espresso Dacquoise
This multilayered showpiece of meringue and buttercream coated in ganache might just be the best dessert you’ll ever make—plus you can prepare it the day before.
-
Gluten-Free Chocolate Cream Cupcakes
Hostess CupCakes were a childhood favorite for most of us here in the test kitchen, so we wanted to develop a gluten-free version that would live up to our fond memories of the original.
-
Gluten-Free Rainbow Sprinkle Cupcakes
Rainbow (or confetti) cupcakes are festive and especially popular with children, so we wanted to develop an easy-to-make gluten-free version that would deliver on flavor and looks alike.
-
Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake
Tired of great-looking chocolate Bundt cakes that are bland and boring? So were we. Our ideal cake would be moist, rich with chocolate flavor, and attractive.
-
Pear-Walnut Upside-Down Cake
The underrated pear makes for a more refined version of this simple cake—if you know just how to treat it.
