All jarred up!

"Collecting is an illness, and probably an incurable one." - Donald Hess

Great.

I don't know why, but a couple of years ago, I started collecting napoletana jars! I'd wash them (thoroughly of course), peel off the label, then store them away in the cupboard until I found a use for them... Surely something would come up, right!

Well, I DID find a use for them!! And am glad I was collecting them after all! (I still do, by the way).

I had collected about 20 jars when I finally Google'd 'gifts in a jar' and found this awesome site! Filled with so many wonderful recipes and ideas of things to put into jars, I almost didn't know where to start or what to choose! Finally, I had decided on a cookie mix! Then the fun began!

I needed to re-design the recipe a little bit to make it fit into the jars, but kept (I think) the proportions the same. So, for a cookie mix in a 500g napoletana jar, you will need:

1 cup self-raising flour (or 1 cup plain flour & 1/4 teaspoon baking powder)

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

Your favourite cookie filling!

When you put them all into a jar, one at a time, and press them down flat (I used a plastic tamper from my old coffee machine for a 'flat' finish), they should look something like this:

You can do pretty much ANY cookie filling in these- they are so great. For the ones I made first (Cherry Ripe), I used:

3 mini Cherry Ripes, diced

1 table spoon of coconut (it was my husband's idea to add coconut!)

1/4 cup of chocolate pieces

(I mixed those ingredients in a bowl, then added the mix to the jar)

Simple, right! Then comes the even better part... Decorating the jar!

I designed a simple 'tag' to attach to my cookie mix jars, to let people know what it was, and what to add to these ingredients to make the cookies. I then printed them out, laminated them (I have too much time on my hands, I've been told, but I wanted them to be nice and pretty the first time, and it was worth it... Plus, if you're in the kitchen making cookies -or anything- things go splatter, and a piece of paper is likely to get all damp and mushy... So it's more a precaution, too? ... Anyway!)

So these were the tags that I had made for my first batch of Cherry Ripe Cookie Mixes in jars! Yay! When they were laminated, I simply punched a hole in the corner and they were ready!

Then I came to the 'lid'... Hmm... I had thrown out the original lids, so needed to come up with something else to seal them with... Then I  had a brilliant idea (well, I thought it was brilliant!) which would seal the jars AND add a bit of colour (which I could easily switch and change according to the cookie filling I had used) - A circled piece of cardboard, under a BALLOON! I just cut the neck off, and pulled it over the jar! Then put some cellophane on it, of course, to make it shiny and give it that finished, wrapped look :) - it was also handy to tie the recipe tag onto the ribbon that keeps the cellophane in place :)

And voila! Ingredients, cardboard, balloon, cellophane, ribbon, and a recipe tag, and you have a home-made Cookie Mix jar! I've used these for Christmas presents for my bible study group, and they make great presents for teachers, too :)

 ... I also collect bottle lids :)