Few days before Christmas, some group in our community organized a gift-giving activity for kids. Apparently, it was also a fund raising project since I overheard the group was going house to house to collect cash donations. I am not sure if our family was able to donate, but my kid received this:
I appreciate the group’s intention to bring cheer to the children amidst the Christmas pandemic but I am just disappointed with the means they did it. Not only that this is age inappropriate for my 10 year old child, I am more disappointed because I feel the gifts were not well thought of in order to supposedly serve a purpose.
The pandemic has brought us to focus more on fulfilling our basic needs and I feel that if we need to give, we should give something that is essential and useful. Honestly, I feel that I should not be offended if I don’t receive any gift this Christmas and if ever I do, I would appreciate receiving something necessary to have.
In my opinion, gifts like food, plants, health and cleaning essentials are the best to give this holiday season. They don’t have to be expensive. What is more important is the thought and creativity we exert to give the best gift we can give this season.
After thinking hard and long about what practical gifts I can give this Christmas to family and friends who helped us during this challenging year, especially the time when we got stricken with COVID19, I was able to come up with these.
Organic Coffee in Tea Bags. Non-Acidic coffee you can brew anytime, anywhere by just adding water.
Walnut Brownies with Organic Coffee in Tea Bags
Trail Mix – roasted walnuts, roasted cashews, dried Cebu mangoes and California raisins
Buying gifts this time of pandemic is an extra challenge because as much as possible we do not want to go to crowded places and we want to maximize our budget. If we can make something we can do at home, all the better. Maybe I can help you with a gift idea — let me help you with a tried, tested and loved (by my customers and family) Egg Tart recipe that you can make at home and give as a gift to your loved ones. And if they love it, maybe you can also turn it into a business.
Here is the video tutorial:
Below are the ingredients you need and estimated recipe costing.
| Ingredients | Weight (grams) | Cost (₱) |
|---|---|---|
| Tart Shell | 30 pcs | 290 |
| Condensed Milk | 375 | 48 |
| Fresh Milk | 625 | 50 |
| Egg Yolk | 250 | 90 (cost of whole egg) |
| Vanilla Extract | 10 | 22 |
| TOTAL COST OF 1 RECIPE | 500 | |
| yield | 30 PIECES | |
| cost per piece | 16.67 | |
| cost per 6pcs | 100 | |
| cost of box | 10 | |
| TOTAL COST PER BOX OF 6 | 110 |
Your costing will depend on the actual price of the ingredients where you purchased them. You can purchase the Tart Shells from Party Carousel or at Restaurant Depot in Pasay City, Metro Manila and 6x9x2 white boxes from E-Cahon (you can find them on Facebook or on Shopee). Their product prices are as indicated. Your cost will be affected too by the brands you use and the size/quantity of the product. If for example you purchase vanilla extract in bigger packaging, the cost per gram will be lesser. If you can make use of the egg whites, then you can also reduce the cost of the eggs for this recipe that only requires egg yolks.
If you notice, we only baked 6pcs tarts for this recipe. The advantage of having a recipe in grams instead of cups is you can easily reduce or increase the ingredients according to your need. We simply divided the ingredients to 5 to be able to make custard mixture just for 6 pcs of tarts.
Make this Christmas season and coming New Year more merry with our simple to follow Egg Tart recipe. We appreciate if you can give feedback about the recipe in the comment section.