M&M Christmas Cookies in a Jar

This is my first DIY project that I will be sharing. This homemade gift is not only bakes into delicious cookies with tons of chocolate chips and m&m's, its also pretty inexpensive to purchase the items you'll need, you can decorate the jars to suit the person your giving the gift to.  I got my mason jars from the Japanese 100 yen store, its basically your $ dollar tree in the states.  and I just bought a bunch of ribbon and stickers to paste onto my jars.  I also went into word and used a nice template and typed the recipe out and printed them on card stock and added the recipe to a Christmas card.

The reason for making homemade gifts this year was I wanted to do something extra special for my family and friends.  I thought hmmm, whats more special then homemade gifts that you can eat.  I can't tell you how excited I get every year knowing that my nana will send me a box of homemade cookies. So I'm hoping that my family and friends will get excited for my special homemade gifts each year, perhaps this will start my own tradition of sending out homemade cookies just like my nana.

I found this wonderful idea at Bakerella and adapted them for a Christmas themed gift.



M&M Christmas Cookies in a Jar

Materials:

Mason Jar ( 1 quart size)
Ribbon any color
Tags
Stickers
glue stick

Ingredients for the Jar
Adapted from Bakerella 

1 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cups m&m's
3/4 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 white sugar

How to layer the ingredients

1st layer: Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together
2nd layer: Oats
3rd layer: M&Ms
4th layer: chocolate chips
5th layer: Brown Sugar
6th layer: White sugar

I used a large spoon to add each layer into the jar, after adding the first layer, pack each layer next tightly by pressing down with the spoon or using your hand make a fist and gently pack each layer down.

Directions for baking the cookies

You'll need 
1 Jar m&m christmas cookies
1 egg slightly beaten
1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper
- Dump the ingredients from the jar into a large bowl and mix together.
- Mix your wet ingredients together in a small bowl and add to the dry ingredients.  using the back of a wooden spoon, work all the ingredients together.  Though I found that using your hands to combine the ingredients together worked the best :)
- Roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on the cookie sheet and back for 10 minutes, makes about 2 dozen cookies.

I apologize for not having a after shot of the cookies, I stayed up extra late to make a batch for family to send out in their packages the next day and i honestly didn't have enough energy to set up my make shift studio and take shots. Plus my hands hurt so much from all the paper cuts from the wrapping paper and boxes lol. Good thing x-mas comes once a year, and too bad I live in Japan so far away from family.

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Gingerbread Cupcakes with Eggnog Buttercream

I've had the hardest time finding the perfect buttercream...until now!
I think I just found my go to frosting for cupcakes. I never tried a cooked frosting before, I initially thought it was too much work.  But after making another batch of powdered sugar frosting that I decided to throw away... again, I figured it was time for a change and  go outside my comfort zone.

I have to say I'm really happy I did, the cooked buttercream frosting came out smooth and creamy like whipped cream and it had a great pipping consistency.  Plus it wasn't overly sugary like you can get with powdered sugar frostings.  I will diffidently be using this recipe as my go to and can't wait to try more flavors.

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Eggnog Buttercream
Recipe from Taste of Home

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/3 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice

Eggnog Buttercream
Adapted from Can you stay for dinner?

Ingredients

1 cup eggnog
5 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butter at room temp
1 1/4 cup sugar (not powdered sugar)

Directions

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and fill a cupcake tin with paper liners
- In a electric mixer cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy about 3 minutes.
- Beat in the egg and then the water and molasses
- In a separate bowl combine your dry ingredients flour, baking soda, powder and spices
- Add your dry mixture to the electric mixer with your wet mixture and beat on medium until combined about 2 minutes.
- Fill cupcakes liners 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes. (mine took 22 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack completely.

Buttercream Directions

- In a medium saucepan, whisk 1 cup of eggnog with 5 tablespoons flour. Heat over medium until the mixture starts to bubble, whisk constantly. Continue to stir until the mixture starts to thicken, it will soon thicken to the consistency of cake batter. After about 7 minutes of whisking remove the mixture from the heat and add your extract.  Transfer the mixture to a heat proof bowl and let the mixture cool completely to room temperature. (I let it sit for about 30 minutes, stirring the mix every 10 minutes to release the heat)

- In your electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar on medium high for 3 minutes the mixture should be light and fluffy and white in color. You want the sugar to be completely incorporated in the butter.

- Make sure that your milk/flour mixture is completely cooled and add it to the butter and sugar. (you don't want the milk/flour mix to be warm or it could melt the butter).  Beat all ingredients together for 1 minute on high speed, scrapping down the side of the bowl halfway, until smooth and blended. The frosting should be light and fluffy like whipped cream.

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