Monster Cookies in a Jar

We always get our nieces and nephews something for Halloween.  They are getting older now, so it is harder to come up with something for all of them.  This year I decided we would make Monster Cookies in a Jar and decorate the jars like monsters.  The kids and I headed to Hobby Lobby, bought some jars and found some stickers that you can decorate pumpkins to look like monsters.  When I bought these I thought they would be the same size as the pictures on the outside of the package, but they were much larger.  Here are some from Oriental Trading that would work great.  I have used these before on pumpkins, but didn't have time to order them this year.  They would be the perfect size.  We made due with what we had and I think they turned out great.

I let the kids pick out the monsters they wanted and decorate the jars.  We bought the smooth Mason Jars at Hobby Lobby and they happened to be 50% off that week too.

Here are the jars.  Next we added the monster cookie mix as follows:

2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup M&M's

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Layer the ingredients in the order given into a wide-mouth 1 quart canning jar.  Make sure to pack the brown sugar before adding the M&M's.  We used the bottom of our ice cream scooper for this job and it worked great.  We also topped our jars off with more M&M's to add more color and fill the jars.

Then we added the rest of the directions to the top of the jar. 

Monster Cookies

In a large bowl, cream 1/4 cup softened butter, 1 egg, 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 tsp vanilla.  Slowly add the Monster Cookie mix in this jar until well blended.  Form dough into 1 inch balls, place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 375˚F for 12 minutes.

You can click here for a printable of these tags.

We decided to embellish the jars a little more with some pipe cleaners to make hair.

You will also notice the jar on the far left has already made cookies in it.  One of our nieces is in college and lives in the dorms, so I made her a jar with the cookies already made.  Then we just made one jar per family for the rest of the nieces and nephews.