[.ca] Gifts in a Jar, Cookies: Recipes to Make Your Own Gifts (ISBN 156383121X)

great ideas but dry:
Although I thought this book had great ideas, when I went to sample the recipes before I made them for friends, I found the consistency of the dough very dry and impossible to "spoon" out by rounded spoonfuls. I had to use my hands to smush the dough together. I may have to make my own recipes instead.

Too Sweet, Too Dry:
There's a good, scientific reason that most cookie recipes have you cream together butter and sugar before you add ingredients. The problem with this book--like many mason jar cookie cookbooks--is that the cookie recipes seem to be just "regular" cookie recipes made without doing that step first. The resulting cookies have little taste and are overpoweringly sweet and dry. I only tried two...but after two, I couldn't bear to try any more.

Not an heirloom recipe but...:
...it still makes a good cookie. I tried 2 recipes and made it with my stand mixer. My cookies were fine but they are of the thin and crispy variety, not the thick, chewy kind. I've already made up jars to give as gifts (flour & sugar trickles down through the ingredients - like chips and nuts - so I just reversed the order making sure all powdery stuff was on the bottom). All in all they're good gifts for anyone who wants homemade without the fuss of measuring (i.e. college students or projects for kids).

Lots of easy to read recipes:
Great guideline for cookie mixes in a jar, she even provides tags you xerox or cut out for directions!

Good recipes, but not many recipes:
I have most of the books in this series. My parents are aging and I have been looking for items that I can make for them which will have a long shelf life and would require them to do minimal food preparation, yet still have a 'home cooked meal'. The recipes fit the bill for the most part. In each book I found that there were a few recipes that are great and some I wouldn't try at all. This is what I usually find in any cookbook. I would comment that each book only has about 25 or so recipes in it. The rest of the pages consist of 6 copies each of pre-made instruction cards to enclose with each food package. I did feel disappointed in the number of recipes for the cost of the book