Shabbos gifts are a great way to thank your hostess for feeding you a great meal, and for getting a bedroom ready for you should you be sleeping over. There are a wide variety of gift ideas available to show your appreciation. One of the ones I like is to give a “Gift in a Jar.” You can also give this as a holiday gift for a co-worker or friend. Young bakers may also appreciate this as a different type of birthday gift as well. The jars contain ingredients that can be baked into the cookies below.

Let me share some of my recipe favorites.

Cookies in a Jar

2½ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup brownulated sugar (Domino makes this)

¾ cup swirled chocolate chips or mix white and brown chips

Have ready a clean 1-quart reusable metal, plastic, or glass container to hold your ingredients. In a medium-sized bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Spoon 1 cup of the flour mixture into a second bowl and add cocoa powder and cinnamon. Whisk to mix well. Begin packing jar for gift. Spoon about half the flour mixture into the bottom of the jar. Use a small spice jar to lightly compress. Spoon in half the cocoa mixture; compress. Spoon in remaining flour mixture and cocoa mixture, compressing after each layer. Top second cocoa layer with granulated sugar and brownulated sugar, compressing each slightly. Pour chips over and seal jar. Write baking instructions on a tag or pretty scrapbook paper and secure with ribbon. You can easily punch a hole in the directions to attach with ease.

Baking Directions

In large bowl, combine 1 1/2 sticks margarine melted and cooled with 3 eggs and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Stir in contents of jar. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 13–14 minutes.

Cocoa and Peanut Butter Yummy Mix

1 1/3 cup flour

¾ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

½ cup unsweetened cocoa

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 package peanut butter chips

Stir flour, baking soda, salt together in a bowl. Layer ingredients in a 1 quart wide-mouth jar in the following order: flour mixture, cocoa, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and chips. Seal jar. Attach recipe as instructions above.

Recipe:

¾ cup margarine

1 egg

2 tablespoons water

½ tsp vanilla

1 jar Cocoa and Peanut Butter Yummy Mix

Preheat oven to 375°

Beat margarine in bowl until smooth. Beat in egg, water, and vanilla. Mixture will be lumpy. Pour jar mix into another bowl and mix up well. Stir in the margarine mixture and blend well. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 3 inches apart onto cookie sheets. Bake 8–10 minutes until firm. Do not overbake.

Hearty Split Pea Soup

1 cup split peas

1 cup red lentils

1 cup yellow split peas

1 cup pearl barley

Spice Packet:

1 tablespoon soup mix

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon white pepper

small pinch of cinnamon

small pinch of allspice

2 teaspoons Mrs. Dash containing tomato basil and garlic

1 tablespoon kosher salt

In a pretty wide-mouthed jar, layer yellow peas, green peas, barley, red lentils in any pattern you wish. Take the ingredients for spice packet and put into a drawstring bag or just a small plastic bag (whatever you wish). Place on top of dry bean mixture. You can also put some croutons in a bag if you have room in the jar and lay these on top. Follow directions below.

Directions

Place 18 cups of water into a large pot. Add the contents of the jar (not the spice packet), bring to a boil and reduce flame. Simmer half an hour. Add contents of the spice packet stir and simmer for half an hour more.

Gail Hochman has been a resident of Bergen County for over 30 years and has been blessed with many grandchildren.

By Gail Hochman