From hot chocolate to hot sauce: Food gifts around the Shore to buy for the holidays

Does your dad really need another tie? How about those fuzzy socks and slippers you've bought for your mom the third year in a row? And don't you think your friends and relatives deserve more than another gift card?

This year, get your loved ones something they'll love:

• Chocolate

• Homemade sweets and treats

• Hot sauce

• A good cup of tea.

What makes it even better is that these food gifts will be supporting local and area businesses. Here are a few places to add to your holiday shopping list:

Sweet Revenge Custom Chocolate

Sweet Revenge Custom Chocolates in Point Pleasant Beach is back for their second Christmas, after opening in September of 2020.

Owner Meg O’Malley, 27, is ready for the holiday season.

“I’m really excited to still be here because the first year is always rough for a small business, but especially during the pandemic, and last year really prepared me” she said. “I’m just so happy to be able to do another Christmas.”

O’Malley transforms the shop into a winter wonderland for the season, offering cups, trays and plates filled with chocolate. Customers also can pick and choose candies and request custom orders.

“If someone doesn’t see something they want, I can put it together really quick or within a few days,” O'Malley said.

Her best sellers are the Caramel Pretzel Bar, Hot Cocoa Bombs and the Lackawanna Rod (a pretzel dipped in caramel, rice krispies and milk chocolate).

O'Malley worked in Jersey City at the corporate office for Carlo's Bakery (known for the “Cake Boss”). The building was named the Lackawanna Center for its historical significance as the former Lackawanna Railroad Factory site.

“I wanted to name something after that [place] because it taught me a lot, and helped me get ready to run my own business,” she said.

Sweet Revenge Custom Chocolate is at 527 Bay Ave., Point Pleasant Beach. For more information, call 848-232-1017 or visit sweetrevengechocolate.com.

Venues for the holidays: These Jersey Shore restaurants have great party spaces

Jane Dough's Sweets by Jane Bader

This home baker, who bakes under the New Jersey Cottage Food Operators license at her home in Monroe Township, makes custom cookies, pies, bars and cakes for the holiday season.

Owner Jane Bader specializes in butter cookie platters with seasonal designs, which are made-to-order. This season, her platters will feature whimsical designs, like an assortment of snowflakes with Frosty the Snowman front and center, or various reindeer and Santa.

Although she does not stray from her classic butter cookie recipe, she often infuses different seasonal flavors, including an orange cranberry essence, as well as cinnamon brown sugar.

She also makes hot cocoa bombs in milk and white chocolate varieties, featuring a chocolate-covered spoon to stir in, all wrapped in a to-go cup filled with marshmallows.

You also can order a variety of cakes (including gluten-free cheesecakes) and lemon bars.

“Being able to bake from home, I can put more heart into it,” she said. “I can bake starting first thing in the morning, and put more thought into it because I don’t have to rush.”

She delivers across the state.

“I don’t do it for the money, I do it for the love and making people smile,” she said. “When you bring something that’s homemade to someone’s house, they’re very touched by it and it means so much to me … It’s very gratifying to see people’s faces when [they try] my cookies.”

Order at 908-692-1681. For more information, visit her Instagram or janedoughssweets.com.

Music: Light of Day festival returning to Asbury Park with main event at the Basie in Red Bank

Oh You, TEAse

Teas that “brew a smile in every cup” is what Oh You, TEAse, an online company out of Monmouth County, strives to provide, according to owner Anna Rose Rotondi-Kauser.

She creates all 13 teas in her regular collection by herself, including top sellers Sleeping Beauty (a naturally caffeine-free vanilla rooibos tea with lavender); Get Out of My Way (a PMS symptom fighter with black tea, chamomile and raspberry leaf); and Love Me, Love Me Not (a green tea base with hibiscus, pomegranate and pink rose petals, which turns magenta when brewed).

She also releases limited time seasonal brews, like her Appley Ever After, which just debuted this fall, and her limited holiday edition Frosty’s on Fleek, which she calls a “dreamy blend that captures the holiday cookie taste we all know and love.” Naturally caffeine-free, it features rooibos tea with papaya, almond, snowflake sprinkles, and candy pieces to add a hint of sweetness.

Oh You, Tease is sold around Monmouth County, including From the Garden Gift Shop in Freehold, where she regularly hosts intimate tea parties for 12 people and up.

“It’s really important for me to infuse positivity into everything that I do because life is super stressful,” she said. “If we could all pause for just a minute, for one cup of tea, just to center ourselves and treat ourselves to a little bit of happiness, our lives would be so much better and it would make such a difference.”

For more information, visit their Etsy, Instagram or ohyoutease.com.

Light displays to check out: Drive-through holiday light displays in NJ, NY and PA you don't want to miss this season

Burger Buff Sauce

Toms River's Nick Lepore has built a following of burger-crazed fans through his brand Burger Buff, and by hosting burger pop-ups that sell out in minutes.

If you don't have any luck securing a ticket, try your hand at making his crispy-edged burgers at home and top them with Burger Buff sauce. It's sweet, tangy and creamy with "a little bite to cut through the high fat content in a proper smash burger," Lepore says.

Find the sauce ($8.49 for a 9-ounce bottle) at Lenny's Colonial Ranch Meat Market, 3108 Bridge Ave. in Point Pleasant Borough. For more on Burger Buff, visit theburgerbuff.com.

Sauce Bae Hot Sauce

You don’t have to sacrifice flavor or good eating to be health conscious.

That’s what Kevin Carbone, owner of Sauce Bae, learned when embarking upon his entrepreneurial journey. At age 21, as a healthy college student who played soccer and studied finance at Ramapo College of New Jersey, Carbone was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, and it changed his entire life.

After focusing on clean eating, making all of his meals himself and learning to understand his body through trial and error, he came up with the idea for Sauce Bae in 2017.

He began making his hot sauce in a commercial kitchen in Spring Lake, then found a co-packer in North Carolina. He created a hotter flavor with more habaneros and a little ghost pepper, and his hot sauces now are carried in more than 350 Shoprites, 250 Harris Teeters, and 1,000+ Food Lions come March. The sauce has even been featured on Hot Ones, the hit YouTube web series.

The sauce has turmeric, a natural anti-inflammatory. It has no sweeteners, it’s low sodium and it’s free of preservatives — using the acidity of pineapple and a hint of vinegar to make it naturally shelf-stable.

More information is at saucebae.com.

Finley Candles

While not edible, most would be fooled by these candles at first glance.

Using real food ingredients, owners Maria and Kevin Orsino concoct homemade candles reminiscent of actual treats.

These include some of their top sellers, like the Cinnamon candle (dusted with real cinnamon) and the Candy Cane candle, in both soy and gel varieties, which features real crushed candy canes.

Finley Candles also offers Strawberry Cheesecake candles, "Ok… but first coffee" (smells like fresh-brewed coffee), and “It’s Yo Birthday” candle, which started it all.

From there, the Orsinos opened a store in April on Main Street in Toms River to sell their candles. However, with full-time jobs (Maria works as a children’s mental health therapist and Kevin works in the music industry), as well as a young child, the hours were not realistic so they closed in July.

They now operate from their home in Stafford, and sell online, in boutiques, spas and flea/farmers markets around New Jersey — especially in the Manahawkin/Stafford/Long Beach Island region.

“This is a part of our story,” Maria said. “We’re going to continue growing within the community and making connections.”

The couple named Finley candles after their nearly 3-year-old daughter, Mia Finley.

“The name represents passion, working hard and not taking the easy way out,” Orsino said. “We’ve had a million and one things in our way, and we want our candles to light up the room with love, just like our little baby does.”

Sarah Greisemer contributed to this story.

Portions of this story have been previously published.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Best food gifts to buy this holiday season at the Jersey Shore