Mother's Day Gifts for Mums Who Love Cooking

Flowers die. Chocolates get eaten by everyone except her. And there is a slightly hollow feeling to handing over something you bought at a petrol station on the way, however nice the packaging.

When Mother's Day falls in the UK

UK Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent, so the date moves every year - usually somewhere in March, occasionally the very start of April. Mother's Day in the US falls much later, on the second Sunday in May, and other countries have their own dates again.

This matters more than it sounds. If you're ordering anything made to order, the UK date creeps up on people who half-remember it being in May, and every year plenty of British families find out a week or two too late.

1. Her recipes, written down properly

Ask most people what their mother cooks and you'll get an instant answer. The Sunday roast. The specific way she does mash. The cake that appears at every birthday. The thing she makes when you're ill that isn't really a recipe, just something she does.

Now ask her to write it down. She almost certainly can't - not because she doesn't know it, but because she's never had to. It's in her hands, not on paper.

A personalised cookbook turns that into an object: her recipes, the ones she inherited from her own mother, and the ones her friends and children associate with her, made into a real book.

It's a gift that says: what you do matters enough to keep.

Doing it well: don't just list ingredients. Add a photo and a paragraph under each recipe about when she makes it and who it's for. Send a link to her sisters, her friends and her children and they'll add theirs too - so she opens a book written by everyone who loves her, rather than a book about her written by one person.

2. A day where she doesn't cook

The gift is not lunch out. The gift is that she doesn't plan, shop, cook, serve or clear up. Someone else does all of it, badly, in her kitchen, and she is not allowed to help.

Do the washing up too - that's the whole present.

3. The photographs off her phone, printed

She has eleven thousand photos and none of them exist anywhere she can hold. A well-chosen fifty, printed properly, is worth more than another candle.

4. Something she mentioned once

Mothers are famously bad at asking for things and excellent at mentioning them in passing. The pan she said was on its last legs. The book she said sounded interesting. The trip she said she'd love to do "one day".

Pay attention for a month beforehand and you won't need a gift guide.

5. Time, with a date on it

"We should do that sometime" never happens. "I've booked us in for the 14th" does. Book the thing - a day out, a class, a walk, lunch with just the two of you - put it in the diary and turn up.

6. A letter

Unfashionable, free, and the one she'll keep in a drawer.

If there are several of you

A group gift from all the siblings is almost always better than three separate presents, and Mother's Day is the occasion where this is easiest to organise because everyone's thinking about it at the same time.

It also solves the perennial problem of the sibling who lives furthest away and feels they've contributed least. A book everyone writes a page of gives every one of you something to do that isn't paying.

Practical version: one person sets it up and sends a link, everyone adds a recipe and a paragraph, and it arrives as a gift from all of you. Allow four to six weeks - and set your internal deadline a fortnight before the real one, because at least one sibling will need chasing.

If you've left it late

If the day is nearly on top of you, a made-to-order gift is cutting it fine - and that's okay, because most of what's on this page doesn't need to be a physical object on the day.

Print a good photo, put it in a card, and write inside what you're making and who's contributing to it. The reveal on the day is the promise; the book itself follows a few weeks later. In practice this often works better anyway, because she gets two things to look forward to instead of one.

Common questions

When is Mother's Day in the UK?

The fourth Sunday of Lent - in March most years, occasionally the first days of April. It's a moveable date, unlike the US Mother's Day, which is always the second Sunday in May.

What can I get my mum who says she doesn't want anything?

Something that takes up no space: a day off, a booked date, or something built out of her own life. The objection is almost always to accumulating more objects, not to being given something.

What's a good Mother's Day gift from all the siblings together?

Anything everyone contributes to rather than just splits the cost of. A book each of you writes a page of beats a more expensive object bought by one person and signed by four.

What about a first Mother's Day?

New parents are in no state to appreciate anything requiring effort. The gifts that work are food she doesn't have to make and time she doesn't have to ask for. The cookbook version comes into its own a year or two later, when there's a family history starting to accumulate.

How long before Mother's Day should I order a personalised gift?

Four to six weeks if other people are contributing recipes, two if it's just you - most of that time is waiting on contributors rather than the printer.