Xmas Cookies

I know Christmas has been and gone but I am trying to get through all the bits and pieces of food and ingredients in and around my kitchen with out having to throw anything out.

Sarah got this "biscuits in a jar" as a gift at Christmas, but she said her children don't really like biscuits made with some of the ingredients we could see in the jar, so she gave it to me.

Now I must admit once I really looked, I did wonder who it would be for as there were nuts, M&M's, chocolate and rolled oats along with the usual baking ingredients.





The layers were a flour mix, rolled oats, M&M's, chocolate chips, brown sugar, white sugar and peanuts.


So following the basic recipe as attached to the jar I set to work.








The oven was already hot as I had made some double chocolate surprise muffins with left-over mini Easter eggs so I just tipped all the ingredients from the jar into a large mixing bowl. What an interesting mix of colours and shapes. I was almost sorry I didn't have a child with me to enjoy the fun!







I mixed together all the "wet" ingredients in a jug and then after giving the dry ingredients a good mix together, I tipped the jug of wet mixture into the bowl.

Once it was all mixed together (one again a great thing for a child to have done as there was no need to worry about beating butter to a cream or folding the mix carefully) it was ready for rolling into balls.

 I found this actually a little sticky and had to rinse my hands clean - to wash off the sticking mixture and to make rolling of the 'balls' easy.

Another great activity for small hands!

I got two trays of biscuits amounting to 33 in all.

On the first tray they were a little too close and didn't quite come out round but I was able to space them more on the second tray once I saw what was going to happen while baking. The instructions didn't say how much space between biscuits to allow.

Needless to say I have frozen an ice cream container of them for when little ones come to play.

There is a basic recipe for making up the jar here, noting that peanuts were used in the jar I used instead of pecans, and the colour of M&M's are used to suit the occasion.

Other recipes are on this site too.

I have seen something like this given to new mums so they can make up some baking with the minimum of fuss and time.