One of our favorite gifts to give for Christmas or other occasions is baking mixes. It’s such a versatile gift–so long as the recipient has basic cooking/baking skills, they will be sure to enjoy it! I especially love the concept of baking mixes in a jar; the presentation of the ingredients in layers makes decoration of the jar almost optional.
Good deals on jars are pretty easy to come by. Keep your eyes peeled at garage sales and thrift stores throughout the year (maybe you could even snag some for free from FreeCycle!) and begin saving them to use for gifts. You can also re-use large mayonnaise jars or smaller jars (like pickle jars) for miniature mixes.
Near Thanksgiving and Christmas-time, most staple baking ingredients like flour, sugar, baking chips, etc. go on sale at almost every major grocery store. Stock up then and you can make yummy homemade gifts in a jar quite inexpensively!
Recipes for Gifts-in-a-Jar are plenteous on the web:
::Organized Home–recipes for brownies, cookies, bean soup, bath salts, and more. Includes pre-made tags you can print and cut-out to use. How easy is that?
::AllFreeCrafts–recipes for soups, hot cocoa, cake mix, and more.
::CraftBits–recipes for biscuits, mocha, cornbread, muffins, and even some recipes for gifts-in-a-mug!
::Nestle–recipes for cranberry bread, pumpkin muffins, and more. Includes printable gift tags, too. You’ll need to log into your Very Best Baking account to view these. (Thanks, Jaycie!)
And if none of those look appetizing to you, just do an internet search for "gifts in a jar" and you’ll come up with hundreds more recipes!