Give the gift of good food this holiday season. Visit Zingerman’s Delicatessen to assemble a custom gift box for your whole gift list. For any price point, we’ve got you covered. Looking to impress your inlaws or a big client? Check. Want to give the ultimate Italian pasta package? Mangia, baby!
Whether it’s a bottle of fine olive oil, a bar of single-origin dark chocolate, hand-sliced prosciutto, tinned sardines or exotic honey, our retail section has something for everyone. Maybe you love the idea of gifting the gift of a gift box but you have no clue what to put in it. Give us a price range and we’ll put together an eye-catching and mouth-watering masterpiece!
Give us a call or come on in and start building your gift box today. The Deli’s illustrated Zingerman’s boxes don’t need any wrapping or bows – the art on the sides of the boxes adds all the pizazz a gift needs! Your gift recipient is sure to get excited as soon as they see their custom box, especially because it’s from you.
The deli’s staff loves providing personal guided shopping assistance and are hugely knowledgeable on everything the Deli carries. Gift boxes are the perfect ready-to-gift present for everyone. There are no limits to what you come up with – a tinned fish box? Exotic condiment box? Rare chocolate box?
We invite you to let your creativity run wild when we assemble your portable present. When you shop at the Deli, you can leave price tag removal and artful arrangement to us! If you need a little inspiration to get started, read on to learn about a few of our gift box all stars.
Traditional Holiday Breads
We love to celebrate the holiday season by enjoying our impressive repertoire of traditional holiday breads. In addition to exotic specialties, we carry all of your homegrown favorites. Here are a few of our favorite holiday breads. Pack ‘em in a box and call it a sweet gift!
Panettone
If angels get to have holiday cake, this is probably the one they pick. If you haven’t tried it before, Panettone is the spiritual opposite of all those leaden fruitcakes everyone makes jokes about. It’s a feather-light, golden cake dotted with toasted almonds and slivers of succulent dried fruit, all scented with a generous dose of vanilla. It’s guaranteed to get a rousing round of “oohs” and “aahs” wherever you bring it.
In Italy you know the holidays are coming when big, beautifully wrapped Panettone beckon from magnificently decorated shop windows. Same goes in Ann Arbor. This year we’ll have 4 types available:
Classic Panettone: a buttery rich brioche bread studded with raisins, candied fruit, and scented with natural vanilla. The brioche is made with a special natural yeast – the dough rises three times, or almost 20 hours, before baking.
Orange and Chocolate Panettone: studded with chopped candied orange peel, raisins, and chunks of dark chocolate.
Gluten- free Panettone: light and fluffy panettone with raisins and candied orange peel. A delicious twist on the traditional recipe!
Classic mini panettone: the perfect size for one or two people to enjoy. It’s a secret recipe, but we know it includes European butter, vibrant candied fruits and raisins. It is naturally leavened and hung upside down for 12 hours to cool.
Cranberry Pecan Bread
Loaded with dried cranberries and toasted pecans held together with an organic flour dough, this loaf is the kissing cousin to Zingerman’s Bakehouse extremely popular Pecan Raisin Bread.
Dense, chewy and crunchy, cranberry pecan has a tart tang that’s very enjoyable. It’s delicious served with fresh cheese like a cream cheese or a young goat cheese. And—stay with me here—it’s an excellent shell for an adventurous chicken salad sandwich.
Stollen
Our Zingerman’s Bakehouse delicious German-style cake is a long-standing Zingerman’s tradition for folks looking for unique dessert ideas, great gifts and fine food for weekend brunch. If you haven’t had Stollen before and wonder what all the fuss is about, just take a look at the ingredient list: real butter, organic flour, Bacardi® white rum, glacéed lemons, oranges, cherries, fresh lemon and orange zest, fresh lemon juice, currants, almonds, golden raisins, Red Flame raisins, organic Mexican vanilla beans and our very scent-sual Indonesian cinnamon.
Toasted and spread with a little sweet butter, it’s delicious and perhaps rivaled only by our own coffee cake as a great afternoon snack cake. Each Stollen comes wrapped in a muslin bag and nestled in a gift box and serves 6-8. Barring extensive snacking, it should last for weeks.
Beigli
Beigli (bay-glee) is a yeasted dough rolled up with a sweet filling made of finely chopped walnuts. The outside has a nice shine to it and a unique crackle appearance. Inside, it has a trademark swirl that reminds you of a cinnamon roll standing on its side (though there’s no cinnamon inside). The buttery dough made with organic flour and the rich walnut filling blend perfectly together, balancing the sweetness of the inside with the satisfying chew of the dough. This treat comes in a muslin gift bag nestled inside our fun, colorful cartoon gift box.
A Seasonal Favorite from the Deli Kitchen
Spiced Pecans
We know the holidays are coming when we start to smell the aroma of Spiced Pecans being prepared in the Deli Kitchen using amazing freshly ground spices from Épices de Cru. One might say they’re legendary. Just the fragrance alone is incredibly enticing, but pop one of them in your mouth and you’ll soon find yourself eating an entire bag! Believe me, I’m speaking from experience. We love the wonderful flavor these spices bring to our classic recipe: Jamaican Allspice, Cochin Ginger, Cardamom from the mountains of India, Tribal Black Pepper, Clove and Cinnamon. They are the perfect hostess gift, all dressed up in handsome, shiny packaging. Grab a bag or three and go nuts this holiday.
Have a cheese nerd in your life? Blow their mind this holiday season by assembling a custom cheese gift box. Your lucky gift recipient will have everything they need for an extravagant cheese board at their next gathering or for an intense solo cheese experience. We don’t judge!
Parmigiano Reggiano
Have you heard about our Parm Project? Throughout the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses we’ve embarked on a year-long project to source Parmigiano-Reggiano from multiple dairies and share them with you. We want to spread the word that this cheese is not a singular thing—there are a range of flavors and characteristics in Parmigiano Reggiano varieties, just like with fine wines and olive oil. Stop by to get a taste!
We’ll have gift sets available for your diehard Parm fans. Featuring single farm Parm from, Roncadella and Val Serena dairies from the Parma region of Italy. Really love Parm? Throw a Parm party and invite your friends! Sean, Deli Retail Manager, will deliver an entire or half wheel of Parm to your house and lead you through a private tasting of this truly special and uniquely Zingerman’s cheese offering. Sean will cut the wheel right before your eyes, sample, describe everything in detail, and leave you with a lightly used 🙂 parm tool set as well as the amazing Parmigiano of your choosing. Each Purchase comes with a half or whole wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano (you pick the producer or he’ll guide you.)
Rush Creek is crafted in the style of a Swiss Vacherin Mont D’Or which will likely raise high excitement amongst those who know and love fine French and Swiss cheeses. It’s made only in the weeks between September and November, then aged for another 8 weeks or so ‘til this time of year when it arrives! Andy says, “The Rush Creek relies on the sweetness, the texture of the milk and the heaviness of it in the fall and the delicacy of the cheese maker’s touch. As the milk comes into the autumn months, fat goes up, protein goes up, and it gets to be a bit rich for a hard cheese, but it’s perfect for a soft cheese. This type of seasonal calendar has existed for hundreds of years in parts of Europe.”
Extra Aged Comté
Every year, it’s with much anticipation that we await the arrival of vieux Comté to the Deli’s doorstep. It signals the official beginning of the holidays for us and many of our guests as well. There are seven cave affineurs that oversee 100,000 wheels of comté at Marcel Petite. Four wheels are carefully selected for our extra-aged profile.
A few of our favorite cheeses are special ordered just in time for the holidays every year.
Brabander goat’s milk gouda is made in the Brabant region in the south of the Netherlands from the pasteurized milk of Saanen goats. The wheels are aged for around six months under the direction of Betty Koster who runs Fromagerie L’amuse, Amsterdam’s best cheese shop. What’s especially interesting about the aging of these wheels is that it’s done in a facility that has very little climate control, like cheese rooms used to be. For a few days in the summer they might turn on the air conditioning to keep it from overheating, but otherwise the cheese is allowed to mature at whatever seasonal conditions happen to blow through the windows. The old-school environmentally-low-impact aging makes cheese that has seasonality and takes a careful palate to master.
Black Betty
Every year Betty Koster of Holland’s L’Amuse Cheese Shop sets aside a small trove of her treasured Brabander goat gouda. Where most wheels are aged for six months, this group gets double that. The aging of all Brabander goat gouda is done in a facility that has very little climate control, like cheese rooms used to be. For a few days in the summer they might turn on the air conditioning to keep it from overheating, but otherwise the cheese is allowed to mature at whatever seasonal conditions happen to blow through the windows. The old-school environmentally-low-impact aging makes cheese that has seasonality and takes a careful palate to master.
Vacherin Fribourgeois
Vacherin Fribourgeois is a difficult-to-find cheese produced only by a small number of artisanal cheese makers. The milk for the cheese is sourced from Fribourgeois breed of cows that graze on the Alpine grass and wildflowers all the way through the late spring and summer. As early fall arrives, the cows are brought down to graze on grass and summer hay. This traditional cheese making process gives the cheese a pleasant nutty flavour underpinned by notes of fresh hay and milk.
For the Chocolate Lovers
Chocolate is the perfect ready-to-gift present for so many occasions. Not only is it widely loved, many of the chocolate wrappers are pieces of artwork, eliminating the need for gift wrapping! Today’s chocolate makers go above and beyond when it comes to package design. Beautiful packaging also means chocolate bars are the perfect ready-to-gift product and are extra delightful nestled together in a gift box.
Zingerman’s Hot Cocoa Tin
Available on our menu, now available by the tin. Warm-up after a day of sledding and building snowmen with a frothy mug of the Next Door Cafe’s most popular hot cocoa for over 15 years. Add your favorite kind of milk to make our chocolatey classic at home. Sip while decking the halls or pair a tin with a package of Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory Marshmallows for a comforting and indulgent gift for the cocoa lover in your life.
Who doesn’t love a special box of handmade confections? The Next Door Café’s truffle case is a treasure trove of handmade confections from near & far, traditional to wild. While the beautiful wrapping of chocolate bars make them ready to gift, truffles take the meaning of “perfect present” to the next level. Truffles are beautifully designed both aesthetically and in their flavor profile.
From classic creamy ganache fillings with herbs, fruit and nuts to non-dairy vegan selections and unusual flavor combinations, our truffle case selection is unrivaled and is packed with delicious options. We have pre-assembled collections available and staff ready to help you craft your perfect custom box of truffles and caramels, the perfect “present in a present” to add to your gift box!
For Those Who Need Inspiration!
Whether you are looking for impressive presents, delightful stocking stuffers, the perfect hostess gift or sweets to accompany your holiday party, we have it all. As always, if you’re still hunting for that perfect something and need a little assistance, we are enthusiastic about showing you our favorites and helping you find a special gift for everyone on your list. Don’t forget, when you shop at the Deli you have a chance to sample anything and everything. We think our tasting philosophy makes for an entertaining and informative holiday shopping trip!
Need ideas for holiday shopping? Or just want an excuse to try delicious foods and hear Ari’s food wisdom? Come to one of two seatings for Ari Presents Zingerman’s Best of 2019 tastings December 10th and 19th and get a 20 percent off coupon to use after the event. Ari will lead us through exploring and tasting nearly 30 of the favorite foods from this year. It will be a night of storytelling and tastebud euphoria.
