Another Little Gift

I am very excited about the upcoming weekend, because I'll go sailing (Oooh, the poshness!) and stay at my boyfriend's parents' house right at the lake. To show them my appreciation I decided to bring a little something - and that decision of course meant that again, I had to come up with a cute, personal, useful and generally awesome gifting idea.

Here's what I made:

That's a customized jar of home-made kiwi-banana jam! Home-made jams and chutneys are always great for spontaneous gifts: Just make a few jars at a time, they stay good and edible almost forever, so you have a gift at hand when you need it - or jam for your own toast :)

This jam is a little different however. You don't have to cook it, you just stir all your ingredients together and let it sit in the fridge overnight. That makes it extra-fruity and very simple to make, but it will also go off within a week or so!

Here's the recipe, maybe you like it:

6 kiwis
2 big bananas
1 shot glass of coco liqueur
100 g of preserving sugar
1/2 orange or lime
some grated white chocolate (optional)

Cut the bananas into small pieces, and add the juice of the orange or lime. Peel the kiwis and cut them into small pieces, make sure to get rid of the stringy part in the center of the fruit. Then add the kiwis and the sugar to the bowl and stir for at least 10 minutes with the hand mixer, while slowly pouring in the liqueur. Now you should have a creamy light green jam. If it doesn't seem to thicken enough, slowly add some sugar and stir very carefully. Taste your jam to be sure that it doesn't turn out too sweet!
When done, sprinkle on some white chocolate et voilá!

This tastes incredible on pancakes, by the way, and adds a Caribbean feel to every breakfast table! Don't forget to refrigerate it :)

Now you may have noticed the little extra I added to the jar:



This is a replica of the frog I turned into a brooch. I did it the quick'n'dirty way, and you can SO tell. But sometimes, even I have other things on my mind than painting things golden :)
The little flecks that appear brown on the picture actually are gold sparkles that I added for more drama! I just ran my golden sparkly eyeliner all over it and secured it with clear spary paint.
Then I glued the frog on top of the jar (which is very obviously see-through, so if you make one of these, don't forget to paint the frog's belly! Just sayin' .) and now all I need to do is wrap a pretty bow around my little gift for the lion's parents and I'm ready to go!