A jar of cookies (to be): Cranberry, oatmeal & white chocolate

Most people my age grew up with a cookie jar in the house — generally off limits without asking — but until now I’ve never baked or eaten a “jar cookie.”

To explain:

MT has a ridiculously creative sister, Liz, who loves to craft baskets of goodies, usually themed, as holiday gifts, and this year her Christmas basket included a mason jar with layers of ingredients. It was like an archaeological dig through the land of Willy Wonka or the Keebler elves: White chocolate chips,dried cranberries, oatmeal, flour, brown sugar.

It was cookie dough strata; an eye-catching piece of art that both exposed the individual elements of sweet-treat-to-be and an example of pre-measured ease. The cookie name was on one side of a label, hand written and — I’m confident — hand cut with some variation of “pinking shears” (she would have those, of course, because her artistic endeavours include prodigious custom sewing, especially of costumes for their kids when young).

The other side of the label advised to mix some perishable ingredients together, add the jar contents, and bake.

As I hope the photo shows, emptying the orderly jar into a mixing bowl proved to be one of those “can’t have your cake and eat it too” moments. “But it’s so lovely!” “But it looks like it will taste so good!” “But it’s so lovely.”

The desire to actually taste them, of course, won out, provided the full jar remain preserved in hi-res digital form.

I have little doubt this recipe was harder to tier in that mason jar than it was to make in our oven. And sharp readers may note that I had no easy way of knowing the amounts of each ingredient in the jar.

My solution initially was to “reverse measure” them one at a time, carefully removing each layer into separate measuring cups. Alas, not only did this all but guarantee some inaccuracy, it promised to complete miss smaller ingredients like, say, baking powder, baking soda, spice(s) or salt. I emailed sis and she sent a link to the full recipe.

MT and I both liked these a lot. I did take them into the newsroom taste testers but staffing was light that day. They were well received, but it’s worth pointing out that with so many ingredients you should be careful to know who you are baking for. Dried cranberries can be off-putting, for example, as can white chocolate chips.

That said, if you like the ingredients separately you’ll like these cookies. And this particular test kitchen serves as both a recipe you can try and a gift you can make.

Dobru chut!

(A pint jar of) Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies (thecreativebite.com, through my sister-in-law’s Christmas gift)

Just the cookies:

⅓ cup packed brown sugar

¼ teaspoon Cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

⅛ teaspoon baking soda

⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

½ cup quick oats

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup white chocolate chips

¼ cup softened butter

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 375°.

Beat the butter, egg & vanilla in a medium bow. Pour the jar mix into a medium bowl and mix until well combined. Drop by Tablespoonful onto cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes

To make as a pint jar gift, use an 8-ounce regular mouth glass canning jar with lid.

Pack the brown sugar into the base. On top of the sugar add the cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the flour and gently shake the jar back and forth to even out the layer of flour. Do the same with the oats and then dried cranberries.

At this point you will need to squish the cranberries down to make room for the white chocolate chips. If your chips don’t reach the top of the jar lid, add a few extra to fill the jar. You don’t want any empty space or the layers in the jar will get mixed up and not look very pretty.

Include a tag with the jar with the instructions on how to prepare the cookies.