There's no need spend your hard-earned present money on tacky crackers with plastic little toys. Try these amazing homemade Christmas crackers from Jamie's favourite designer and give your Christmas dinner table a personal touch.
These homemade crackers aren't hard to make at all, and you can put whatever kind of gift you want inside – as long as it fits. Below is an easy method, but even better you'll find a step-by-step gallery beneath that!
You will need
Toilet-roll tubes, or thin postal tubes cut to size
Attractive A4 paper (you can use newspaper, wrapping paper, comics, book pages, prints – whatever you have to hand and will look pretty)
Sticky tape
Cracker snaps (you’ll find them on Amazon and other online stores)
Scissors
Thin card, at least 20cm long
Decorative string or ribbon
Small but exciting things to put inside the crackers
Place a toilet-roll tube on the long edge of your paper, in the centre, and hold it in place with some sticky tape. Thread a cracker snap through the toilet roll and tape it down to one side of the paper.
Roll the tube across the paper, then secure with 3 bits of tape along the seam, in the centre and ends.
Cut two 20x5cm strips from the thin card. Curl each one into a circle and place one inside each end of the cracker, leaving roughly 2cm sticking out of the end. Hold the card in place with a little sticky tape.
At one end of the cracker, form the hand signal for “OK” around the gap between the toilet roll and the card. Gently squeeze and twist a little with your thumb and forefinger, while using your other hand to hold the card in shape. Keep squeezing until the cracker has a nicely defined neck to it. Tie a piece of string or ribbon around the neck of the cracker. Cut off any straggly bits or make a bow.
Pop a Christmas hat, a cooking tip or joke and a little surprise in the open end of the cracker (we used candy canes, nutmeg graters and cookie cutters, but you can customise for your family). Seal the open end as before and ta-da! You have just made your own homemade Christmas crackers!
If you're looking for homemade gift inspiration Michela Chiappa shows you how to make two great edible gifts: Delicious Dulce De Leche, a caramel spread to satisfy any sweet tooth. And beautiful bottles of spiced, pomegranate infused gin.