2 Easy and Delicious Holiday Gifts

It's that time of year!!

Here are two gift ideas are quick to make, sure to please, and both require time to do the work for you.  That being said, if you wish to make either of these in time to give as gifts for the holidays, you should start at least a week before you intend to give it to a friend/loved one.  So, what are you waiting for?



The first gift idea is arancello.  You may have heard of limoncello, a lemon infused alcoholic beverage that is usually served ice-cold after dinner.   This is the same thing but it's made with oranges.  For my version I made a vanilla-infused arancello.

Makes about 8 cups of Arancello
Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups pure grain alcohol (everclear)
The cleaned skin of 10 oranges (use a vegetable peeler to peel off the skin and avoid adding any of the pith OR Zest the oranges with a microplane for more flavorful but less clear product)
5 cups water
3 cups sugar
1/2 vanilla bean

Instructions:
1) Place the pure grain alcohol in a large clean jar along with the orange peels.  Cover with a lid and allow to sit at room temperature for at least seven days, but I recommend you leave it for a month.
2) After the seven days (or month) the alcohol should be a nice orange color.  Strain the alcohol and discard the orange peels or zest.
3) Put the water, sugar and vanilla bean into a medium pot and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, turn off the heat and cover for 20 minutes.
4) Remove the lid and allow the sugar syrup to cool COMPLETELY.
5) Strain the sugar syrup using cheesecloth (or a wet paper towel over a fine mesh strainer) and add it to the alcohol.  It will turn a cloudy orange color.
6)  Pour into clean bottles (I got some cute ones from Fish's Eddie in NYC but you can also use old wine bottles) and allow to sit in the freezer for a week before drinking.  This allows the flavors to intensify.  Serve ice-cold and it's meant to be sipped.  Enjoy!

*You can also make a creamy version by replacing the water with whole milk

The second gift is even easier to make and makes use of the other half of the vanilla bean that you don't use when making the arancello.  This gift is vanilla-sugar.

Simply take a cup or two of granulated sugar and place in a jar along with 1/2 a vanilla bean.  Cover and allow to sit for a week or two, occasionally shaking the jar.

The result is an aromatic sugar that you can sprinkle into your coffee for an added burst of flavor.  You can use it in any way you'd use normal sugar but it adds a little something extra.  It's easy and you can buy a cute jar to put it in.  I split the sugar into two jars and made sure to package each jar with a piece of the vanilla bean inside of it.  This way the flavor will continue to build even after you give it to someone.  You can also tell the person you give it to that they can keep adding sugar to the jar as they use it because the vanilla bean will continue to flavor the new sugar as well.