Lemon Cranberry Muffin Mix

It was too cold to go outside today so we all stayed inside watching movies, trying out our new juicer and baking. I remembered how delicious my lemon cranberry cookies were so I decided to try something similar like...

Lemon Cranberry Muffin Mix (single use)

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon dried lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon salt

I made mine into a jar gift, although it's a little late for Christmas presents. Next holiday maybe?



What else you'll need

1/3 cup water
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Combine wet ingredients and blend, then stir in mix.



Spoon into paper muffin cups and bake at 350 F until tops begin to turn golden.





Delicious and easy!

Gift in a jar: Oatmeal bread mix

Yeah. So when it rains it pours. Our car is dying, our dryer crapped out this weekend, the rain gutters are falling off our roof in a dangerous way, we just had to hire a plumber to unclog a floor drain in our basement, we got our ducts cleaned and we just went on vacation this month. Oh and yes, Christmas shopping...

As I often do in times like this I have myself on a strict no spending policy. I'm eating what I have in the freezer and cupboards and staying away from the stores. But... this is also the time of year I always make my jar mixes for people and I can't make all of them using what I already have here. Or can I?

This summer I purchased a case of extra large mason jars which are perfect for baking mixes. And we literally have about 50 pounds of oatmeal after a big sale at Costo (my oldest daughter LOVES oatmeal). So I thought what can I do with this?

Oatmeal bread mix

3 cups flour
3/4 cup quick oats
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

In a separate sachet, add 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast. It's much cheaper to buy in bulk this way. The baggies can be found in the craft section of the dollar store, the small size come 80 in a package for a dollar.



I like to layer my ingredients in a jar to make it pretty, then put the yeast sachet at the top before screwing on the lid.



What else you'll need

1 1/3 cups warm water
2 tablespoons oil

To make dissolve the yeast in warm water until it's frothy, then add in oil then the mix and stir. Once it's well mixed you can knead it. Then leave it in a large mixing bowl covered with a cloth in a warm place to rise. Because there is no 'warm' place in our house I left it in my oven with the light bulb on to warm it up a bit (the way I do when I dry food in there).



One the dough has risen (it's at least doubled in size), take it out, knead it again and put it into 2 greased loaf pans. Cover them and let them rise again.

Bake at 350 F until the bread starts to brown on the top and bottom.



I fed the test run bread to my daughter for her after school snack and put more in her lunch today. Both my kids couldn't get enough of it so I think I'll be whipping up some more mix for myself as well.

Lemon cranberry cookie mix

Halloween is long gone and we're already in the full swing of the Christmas season. This weekend we went to the Santa Claus parade, took the girls to the mall to meet Santa (where our youngest daughter kicked him in the kneecaps), and went for a walk to see the lights on the local outdoor Christmas tree.

People around me are starting to inquire about teacher and office gifts, they were hoping for some new ideas for gifts in a jar. Today is was rainy and grey so I decided to skip my afternoon walk and bake instead. I wanted something a little bit different, so I made...

Lemon Cranberry Cookie Mix (in a jar)

1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon dried lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda



This mix fit perfectly into a 2 cup (500 ml) mason jar. I would have done a much prettier job layering it but I had an impatient baby snacking in her high chair and didn't have a lot of time to mess around before she protested her captivity.

What else you'll need

1/2 cup butter
1 egg
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Blend butter, egg and lemon juice until smooth, then shake mix and stir into wet ingredients and stir.



Drop batter by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes until cookies just begin to brown.



These were delicious and a nice change from the usual chocolate chip. You can make them into orange cranberry cookies by using dried orange peel instead of lemon peel and orange juice instead of lemon juice.

Gift in a jar: M & M brownie mix

It honestly went straight from summer to winter weather here, and now it's COLD. I've been packing away the bathing suits and sun hats and digging out all the coats and mittens and hats. I've also been thinking about... Christmas!

We mostly keep Christmas for the kids in our family- our daughters and nieces. But for the few adults- teachers and neighbors and family friends we stick to mix gifts in a jar. Last year we gave fajita mix and marshmallow hot chocolate mix, and the year before salsa mix and chai tea mix. This year I wanted to do something different so...

M & M Brownie Mix

Using a 2 cup (500 ml) mason jar, fill the jar with either 2 cups of my regular brownie mix or my gluten free brownie mix. If you want to make an individual jar, put in:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

I like to layer my ingredients in the jar to make them pretty.



On the outside of the jar, tie a small bag of M & M 's with a ribbon. If you are using bulk candies, tie 1/2 cup of M & M's into a baggie. Attach a tag or sticky label with the directions:

What else you'll need

1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend wet ingredients and stir in mix. Pour batter into a greased square baking dish. You can top with batter with M & M's before baking if you want them melted into the brownies, or halfway through if you want them more intact.



Bake at 350 for about 20-30 min (until brownies start to harden). Cool before cutting!

Easy, inexpensive and impersonal. The perfect gift for anyone you sort of know.

Funfetti Cake Mix

My almost 4 year old daughter is obsessed with sprinkles. I mean what little girl isn't? They make everything seem more fun! I saw a box of 'funfetti' cake mix at the store and realized I wanted to try my own!

Funfetti cake mix (single use)

2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup sprinkles
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt



I put mine in a large jar so I could stir it by shaking and get the sprinkles evenly distributed. But also this makes a nice gift in a jar.

What else you'll need

1 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

I would suggest blending the wet ingredients well before adding in the dry mix. I didn't do this, which caused me to overmix, which cause the sprinkles to bleed into the batter and make it look a bit grey.



Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until they begin to brown a bit (times will vary based on size. I almost always do cupcakes)





You can frost these, but I don't like to because it pretty much triples the amount of sugar going into my child and she is young enough to think unfrosted cake is good enough. She was just excited about the sprinkles. They don't call it FUN-fetti for nothing!

Play dough mix

This mix isn't food, but a very useful mix for parents to have in their cupboards.

They are always selling new play dough 'sets' for $20+ that basically include a couple of cans of dough and a few plastic doohickeys to shape it into various things. But I find that stuff such a waste of money- play dough is always getting left out to harden and mixed together to form disgusting new colors. The plastic doohickeys get old and broken fast.

I've been making my own play dough for a while now, and buying my daughter various plastic cookie cutters at the dollar store to mix things up. She also likes making layer cakes using different sized cups to cut the pieces and decorating them with unlit birthday candles.



Homemade play dough is awesome- it's softer, it smells better and it's REALLY cheap to make. The problem is that most recipes make a BOATLOAD. But, play dough is better in smaller amounts because it's a lot less wasteful when it gets left out over night and turns into a giant rock. I figured if I could keep cake mix in the cupboard to whip up at a moment's notice I could do the same with play dough!

Play dough mix (big batch- makes 4x2 containers)

4 cups flour
2 cups salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar

I store it in a flour container and it half fills it. So a double batch would fill it right up, although that's a LOT of play dough!



What else you'll need

1 cup water
1 tablespoon oil
food coloring

Combine 1 1/2 cups of mix with water and oil in a small saucepan and stir well. 'Cook' on medium heat, stirring vigorously with a spatula until it starts to thicken.



Let it cool and then knead into a ball.



Divide into 2 small containers and add 8 drops of food coloring of your choice to each, then knead until the color is uniform.



An inexpensive gift under $5 would be to make the 6 colors of the rainbow in little dollar store containers and add on a package of plastic cookie cutters. (Plastic rolling pins and pizza cutters also make nice additions).

Gift Idea: Movie Night Kit

A lot of times you might want to give a mix for a gift, but figure it's not enough. This is especially true for gift exchanges where there is a certain monetary amount set in advance. This gift combines homemade and store bought and would be appreciated by most people.

First you buy a DVD. Depending on your budget it can be anything from a cheapie Walmart bargain bin movie to a deluxe box set of blu ray discs. I swiped a DVD from Santa's closet of stocking stuffers for the girls for this picture.

Then fill a small jar with bulk popcorn kernals. I used a small 2 cup mason jar, which makes about 4 giant bowls of popcorn.

Next make a jar of popcorn seasoning mix. Right now I have recipes for BBQ, ranch and dill pickle, although I'm working on more.

You can put everything in a basket, but I prefer just using a small gift bag since we already have them and I'm sure you do too. Somehow despite the fact we've never purchased a single one in our lives there are about 500 of them stashed down in our basement from previous holidays.

You can make any type of tags or labels you want. I've seen people make them using photo shopped pictures of their children's faces for gifts for grandparents, but I pretty much stick with a marker, paper and ribbons. Write anything you want about the contents, the gift is pretty much self explanatory though.

If you want to get fancy you can add extras like candy, drinks, ect, it all depends on how big the gift needs to be.

Butterscotch Blondie Mix

My oldest daughter is extremely sensitive to the caffeine in chocolate. I swear she could eat a single chocolate chip at 9 in the morning and still be awake from it at midnight. This has made baking kind of difficult, especially brownies, which are one of our favorites.

But then I thought of something...

Butterscotch Blondie Mix (single use)

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt
2/3 cup butterscotch chips (or chocolate chips, nuts, candy, ect in any combination)

Because of the clumping properties of brown sugar (which is essential to the flavor of blondies), it's not advised to make a 'big batch' of blondie mix. BUT, you can make a bunch of single batches in jars to use later or give as gifts. You can do more elaborate layering and use a large mason jar if it's a gift. I just dumped the ingredients in and used an old peanut butter jar myself.

What else you'll need

1/2 cup butter
1-2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine butter, eggs and vanilla until smooth and then stir in mix and stir. It helps to shake the contents of the jar to mix them before pouring them into the bowl with the wet ingredients.

Pour into a greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes until sides begin to brown.

Let the blondies COMPLETELY cool before cutting or they will crumble. I had to hide mine from my husband and child while I went out to get groceries. But oh, they were worth the wait!