Cookies in a Jar- Gifts too -

Tuesday we had our once a month craft class - - -We had a whoopping 7 people attend – it was great. We learned (hands on) all the ins & outs of Cookies in a Jar.. (and Other Stuff in a Jar)....It was so much fun and fast and furious …I forgot to take pictures!

This gives me an opportunity to give YOU a tutorial on making Cookies in a Jar. There are a few hints and suggestions that will help make the process of layering these gifts a lot easier and smoother.

Having the recipes on your computer helps when making the *Tag* because when you make the Cookies in a Jar (or Something-else in a Jar) you can cut and paste the “instruction Tag" to your favorite paper and have a tag made up quickly to put with your Jar. (AND if you stay with me through the end of this tutorial… you can email me for a copy of my 29 page list of recipes and ideas).. –well I guess you don’t HAVE to stay with be till the bitter end, you COULD just email me right now.. but then you’d miss all the fun .
First: assemble the ingredients.

Jars- It says to have the wide mouth jars (like the kind on the left), but frankly, if you have the regular jars around that’s fine, they still hold the same amount. For filling all the jars you still need a funnel of sorts. I use paper, a little bit heavier than copy paper but not as heavy as card stock. Just roll it a little and it sure helps in filling the jar.

nice eh?
Tamping – All ingredients need to be tamped in. I found that the best tamping tool was a ice cream scoop. Although this wooden rolling pin also helped, as did a little glass or even a rounded measuring spoon. Just look around to what you have handy and see if it fits in the mouth of the jar.
Adding the Ingredients:- Think about the color & type of ingredient and how much air you can tamp out. Add white baking soda or powder or salt to the flour. (Slowly whisking them together will combine it thoroughly) Sugar and Flour need to be tamped down. Be careful with the flour because one hard tamp and the puff of flour can spill all over the place.
Add the flour slowly. I also add flour to my white sugar (so my line of flour isn’t the biggest item in the jar.) You can also add the flour mixture to other white things like…. Coconut or a little bit to the Oats. If you add the flour on top of large things like chocolate chips, it will fall into the cracks and make the chocolate chips almost disappear. (same with nuts).
When through with an ingredient, I use a knife to make the edge sharp.
Just keep tamping each layer (even the large items like chips and nuts have to be tamped down)This jar is Cowboy Cookies.

For Sand Art Brownies= numerous colored layers OF THE SAME CONSISTENCY - After layering and LIGHTLY tamping the layers, you can use a ka-bob stick or Popsicle stick and start poking down from the side of the jar to make “waves” of colors. After you have gone all the way around the jar and like the look, slowly and tightly tamp down the insides of the jar again (starting from the middle of the jar and working your way out. If you find that tamping it down changes the waves, just tamp the middle and add your heavier ingredients to the middle first.
Cowboy cookies ( guess that last one is cow cookies)Thank you for sticking with me- some of the steps are obvious but wanted to mention them anyway!

You can email me (or leave me a comment) that you want to have an email with an attachment of my gatherings of recipes… there are so many besides a ton of Cookie recipes, like Pizza dough in a Jar, and Amaretto Cocoa Mix and White Hot Chocolate Mix... well you get the idea.

I KNOW YOU’LL THANK ME because I've just made this year the easiest Christmas Gift Giving EVER (neighbors, friends, VT ladies, Home Teachers, people at work, the mail person, hair stylist, babysitters, and on and on)