The Art of Making Christmas Cookies in a Jar

When I took a cooking class, during the holidays we decided to make cookies in a jar. The project is easy and pretty low cost. If you can find mason jars for free then it becomes even cheaper. You can also buy mason jars at most department stores after early fall on clearance.

The first thing to do is to find recipes. You can search online or even visit your local library and check a book out. There are many websites that have recipes and many various recipes within them. One of my favorite recipes was for an orange slice cookie. The recipe is located at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cookie-Mix-in-a-Jar-XI/Detail.aspx. It was a big hit with my sister, April, whom I made it for. This is only one of many delectable recipes found on this website.

You can make many at a time and variate your recipes for regular chocolate chip cookies. The recipe for plain chocolate chip cookies can be found at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cookie-Mix-in-a-Jar-I/Detail.aspx. My friend Crystal and I made some for Christmas gifts last year and used different types of chocolate chips for this recipe. Some were made with white chocolate, raspberry chips, milk chocolate chips, mint chocolate chips and even butterscotch chips. It makes it much more fun because you can arrange them differently to create a pretty jar.

One tip for making Christmas cookies in a jar is to have a funnel big enough for the chips to fall through, and to press every layer down with either the bottom of a cup or a spoon. You can also make them look like sand art by poking knives down the side to even the ingredients out when you have brown sugar and flour or different contrast ingredients. This makes the selection nicer to the eye.

When you are finished with the assembly of the cookie mix, I suggest you decorate it. You can make cookies in a jar for baby showers by using a pink or blue cloth on top tied with a coordinating ribbon. You can also add stickers to the jar or even paint them. For Christmas, I bought three different kinds of holiday fabric of about a half yard each. I also used a small plate as a stencil to cut the fabric into nice even circles. I also purchased coordinating ribbons to make pretty bows to seal the top. If you don't like the look of flat fabric you can bunch up cotton balls, napkins, tissue or paper towels to make it have a rounder top.

The last thing to do is to copy the recipe onto an index card or construction paper and hole punch it so you can tie it to the jar with the ribbon. You can add personal touches with stickers and even comments on the side of the card without the recipe. Another great option is to leave out ingredients like walnuts if someone you are making them for is allergic or doesn't like them. This makes the gift more personal and gives it a special touch.

If you like to make crafts then this is a great way to save money for the holidays and add a personal feel to gifts. You can also involve the kids by letting them pour flour or sugar into the funnel and helping to measure different ingredients, they can have a lot of fun and feel included this way. These do take time if you plan on making many at once. When my friend and I made ours we each made 27 and it took about four hours, although we kept forgetting items and had to run to the store three times. Using a shopping list and planning before you start makes this a lot easier and kind of fun!