A few years ago I decided that for the gifts for school for Teachers and Teaching Assistants I'd have a go at a cookie jar. Now the original jar recipe I found was on the Bakerella website and is here being an American website they use cups for the recipe thus making it easy to alter the recipe if the jar size you find is different. Now the recipe calls for pink M&M's which aren't that easy to find in the UK but you can find the tickled pink tubes of Smarties or just use ordinary M&M's or ordinary Smarties instead.
For the jars I had been 'collecting' coffee jars with the glass stoppers all year. I washed them in hot water, removed the plastic part and then put the glass parts of the jar in the oven to sterilise, apparently a dishwasher is also sufficient at getting the jars to a clean and sterilised state. I put the plastic stoppers in very hot water (be careful) to ensure they too are as clean as possible and then ensure everything is clean before popping the jars back together.
I tend to leave out the Pecan nuts in the recipe but that's a personal preference, I layer them up so each of the layers is easily idenifiable.
There is a PDF you can download from the Bakerella website for the labels as well as the tag telling you what to add to the jar once emptied out to make up into the cookies. But if you fancy you could make your own like I did, I used scrapbook papers inked and then the label stuck to the outside and then hung the instructions tag around the top with a piece of ribbon.
Once completed they look like this
So if you fancy a quick and easy gift that's homemade, why not have a go at cookie jars? And if you're not sure if you've got your mix 'just right' you can always make your first jar up and try!
Hope you are enjoying these Twelve Days of Christmas posts pop back later for more inspiration
Virginia