Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar + printable recipes

Welcome to this years Homemade Christmas Gifts Series.  We will feature many nine Homemade Christmas gift ideas over the next two weeks, so make sure that you stay tuned to learn how to make some of these great gift items.

This week we will talk about a great gift idea – making Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar! These are great gifts for teachers, Sunday School teachers, and many more loved ones!

Is there anything better than freshly baked chocolate chip cookies? Okay, you can probably name a few things that are better, but warm chocolate chip cookies are definitely nice. Now imagine if there was a way to capture that joy in a jar and give it as a gift. Well, guess what? You can!

Today’s Crafty Christmas Gift is one that I’ve always loved, but never attempted to create — chocolate chip cookies in a jar. and now that I’ve created it, I have to admit, it was pretty easy. Here’s how I did it:

For this craft, you’ll need a wide-mouthed Mason jar (quart size), some decorative cloth, and about a foot of ribbon. For the cookies, I used the Hershey’s Classic Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe (you’ll find the entire recipe at the bottom of this post), but you can use whichever cookie recipe you’d like. For mine, I only needed flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt and, of course, chocolate chips! (The butter and eggs will have to be added later.)

The first ingredient you’ll add to the jar should be the flour. I used a meat tenderizer to gently pack the flour before adding the next ingredient — the brown sugar.

There’s a method to the order in which you add the ingredients. The flour is first, followed by the brown sugar and then the white sugar. The brown sugar adds a little color between the flour and white sugar. On top of the white sugar, feel free to throw in your dash of baking soda and salt. Finally, top everything off with the chocolate chips.

The chips should go on top for two reasons: First, if you put them on the bottom, any ingredient that goes on top would sift down through them. Second, if you run out of room in your jar, you can short change the chips without affecting the recipe too much. (Did I just say that adding less chocolate chips is okay? I think I did. Sorry about that.)

After you get everything in the jar, go ahead and put a lid on it and cut your cloth cover. You’ll probably want to tinker with the size to suit your needs, but I cut mine about six inches square. Here’s a money-saving tip: Instead of buying a yard of cloth at the craft store for about $5, look for pre-cut fabric squares for about half the price.

And there you have it! You’ll need an extra set of hands to hold the cloth on top while another person ties the ribbon. You can try doing it yourself, but you’ll probably go insane, and you don’t want to do that. For the tag, I wrote the recipient’s name on the front and a simplified version of the cookie recipe on the back. Oh, and you know what’s great about this gift? When the recipient makes these cookies, they’ll probably invite you over to help eat them!

Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter , softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2  eggs
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (11.5-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate Chips

DIRECTIONS

• Heat oven to 375
• Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until creamy.
• Add eggs; beat well.
• Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
• Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
• Cool completely.

Like This?  Why not Pin-It?   

If you missed out on the first 2 days of the Homemade Christmas Gift series, you can view them below:

HomeMade Sugar Scrub Recipe

Have you grabbed my freezer meal plans, yet? I might be biased but I think they are pretty amazing! They have saved our dinner hour for years now. Check them out!