The Foodies Hamper: Eight Items, and What a Cook Does With Each

The Foodies Hamper holds eight things to eat, and six of them are sweet: two kinds of Belgian truffle, caramelised cashew brittle, milk chocolate liquorice bullets, honey popcorn and shortbread. The savoury pair is a packet of sea salt crackers and a tin of black truffle nuts; there is no bottle, and nothing in it wants a fridge. For a box named after people who like food, that is a more interesting edit than it first looks.

Why a snack box lands better than a pantry box

Send a keen cook a hamper of oils, pastes and mustards and you are shopping against their own pantry. They already have an olive oil they are loyal to and a mustard they have opinions about, and whatever you send has to beat it or sit unopened behind it. A box of Belgian truffles, cashew brittle and buttery shortbread fingers is not competing with anything. Nobody makes their own brittle on a Tuesday.

The second reason is the one that makes this a cook's gift rather than just a nice box. Almost everything in it has a job at the bench as well as in the hand. Brittle bashed to rubble is praline. Truffled nuts chopped coarsely are a finishing crumb. Shortbread crushed with melted butter is a base. Somebody who cooks opens this box and sees ingredients, which is why most of it gets used twice.

Six sweet, two savoury, just over a kilo

Weighed up, the eight packets come to a little over a kilogram of food. Nothing is fresh, nothing is chilled and nothing has to be eaten on the day it lands, which is what lets the box be posted anywhere in the country in December. It sits in the alcohol-free hampers range because there is no bottle in it, so it can go to someone whose drinking you have never had reason to ask about, with one label worth checking, below.

It all arrives in the French blue hamper box, finished with a gold ribbon, with a personalised gift card written at checkout.

The two savoury packets

The VPC mini artisan crackers with sea salt are the only plain thing in the box. Small, light and crisp, they are at their best under a cheese, so the quickest way to turn this hamper into a meal is a stop at the deli. If you are choosing that cheese, our notes on which cracker goes with which cheese narrow it down.

Mr Filbert's Italian black truffle mixed nuts are the item most likely to end up in a recipe. Out of the tin they are a drinks-side snack. Chopped coarsely they become a finishing crumb: over buttered pasta, over roast pumpkin or cauliflower, or pressed onto a fillet of fish before it goes under the grill. Truffle needs fat to carry it, so use them where there is butter, oil or cheese already. The brand name has its own history, set out in what a filbert actually is.

The chocolate half

Four of the eight packets come from The Cocoa Emporium, three of them chocolate. Two are 150g boxes of Belgian dusted truffles: one cocoa dusted, soft and plain, and one flavoured with Marc de Champagne. If the hamper is going to someone who avoids alcohol in every form rather than only in a glass, read that second box's label first.

The cocoa truffles are also the packet a cook can take apart. A truffle is ganache in a coat, so eight or ten melted gently with a splash of cream make a warm chocolate sauce for ice cream or poached pears. Low heat, and stir rather than beat.

The third is a 180g pack of milk chocolate liquorice bullets. Chopped and folded through softened vanilla ice cream, it converts a few of the people who say they do not like liquorice.

A December note on all three. Chocolate that gets warm and then cools again turns chalky and pale on the surface, which is cosmetic rather than spoiled, and easier to prevent than to reverse. We have written up why chocolate turns white in summer; the short version is to move them somewhere cool on the day the box lands.

The three that go furthest at the bench

The fourth packet from The Cocoa Emporium, TCE caramelised cashew brittle, is the most useful thing in the box for anyone who owns a rolling pin. Roasted cashews set in thin sheets of caramel: eaten as shards it is a ten minute packet, but sealed in a bag and bashed to gravel it is praline. Fold the rubble through softened vanilla ice cream and refreeze it, or scatter it over a pavlova at the last minute so it does not weep.

Scottie Dog shortbread fingers are 180g of Australian made butter shortbread. Crushed to crumbs, worked with roughly 90g of melted butter and pressed into a 20cm tin, they chill into the base of a no-bake cheesecake or a lemon curd slice.

Kangaroo Island honey popcorn is made with honey from the island's Ligurian bees. It goes out in a bowl with everything else and vanishes at that speed, but the handful left in the bag is a garnish: crumbled over ice cream, it keeps its crunch for about as long as it takes to carry the bowls to the table.

Everything in the box, and its second job

How it arrives

Every hamper is packed by hand in Corio, on the northern edge of Geelong, into the French blue box with its gold ribbon, and that box travels inside an insulated shipper carton so the chocolate is never sitting against the outside of the parcel. A personalised gift card is written out and included at no extra cost, and tracking comes through by email once the parcel is packed. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post. Very occasionally a single line runs out, in which case we substitute an item of equal or higher value and almost always from the same category, so a shortbread becomes a different shortbread.

Questions about the Foodies Hamper

What is in the Foodies Hamper?

Eight packets: VPC mini artisan crackers with sea salt, Mr Filbert's Italian black truffle mixed nuts, TCE Belgian dusted truffles in cocoa, TCE Belgian dusted truffles in Marc de Champagne, TCE milk chocolate liquorice bullets, TCE caramelised cashew brittle, Scottie Dog shortbread fingers and Kangaroo Island honey popcorn. They arrive in the French blue hamper box with a gold ribbon, inside an insulated shipper carton, with a personalised gift card.

Is there a bottle in it?

There is not, and that is the point of it. The hamper sits in the alcohol-free range, so it suits a recipient you do not know well, a workplace, a hospital ward or a Kris Kringle draw. One of the two truffle boxes is flavoured with Marc de Champagne, so where alcohol is being avoided in every form, read that pack before you send it.

Does anything need to be kept cold?

Nothing does. Every packet is shelf stable and travels at room temperature, which is what makes the box postable in an Australian summer. Once it arrives, move the two truffle boxes and the liquorice bullets somewhere cool and the rest of it looks after itself.

How many people does it feed?

Two to four across a week, or one person picking at it for a fortnight. Six of the eight items are sweet, so it behaves more like a dessert and afternoon box than a grazing spread. Buy a wedge of cheese and the crackers turn it into a board.

What does it cost, and is delivery free?

The hamper is $79.95, with standard freight calculated at checkout. Free standard shipping applies to hampers over $100 each, or gourmet food orders over $100; worth knowing if you are adding pantry items. Each hamper is packed and sent as its own parcel so it arrives intact, so hamper freight is worked out per hamper.

Is it the right gift for someone who cooks?

It is, as long as you send it as a treat rather than as a restock. A cook's pantry is already theirs; a box of Belgian truffles, brittle and shortbread is the part of the shop they never get around to. That most of it doubles as an ingredient is the part they will enjoy working out.

The Foodies Hamper is hand packed and sent anywhere in Australia. The other boxes without a bottle sit in the same alcohol-free range, and the seasonal range sits in Christmas hampers.