Mason Jar Cookie Cookbook, The »

Lonnette Parks has been baking cookies since she was seven years old, and is an award-winning pie maker and cake decorator. The author currently resides with her family in Salem, Virginia, where she is the owner of the Blue Ridge Cookie Jar Mixes company, a firm that specializes in creating gift Mason jar cookie kits.

Nothing gladdens the heart like the tantalizing aroma of cookies baking in the oven. But for so many people, a busy lifestyle has made it impossible to find the time to bake at home--until now. Lonnette Parks, cookie baker extraordinaire, has not only developed fifty kitchen-tested recipes for delicious cookies, but has found a way for you to give the gift of home baking to everyone on your gift list.

For each mouth-watering cookie, the author provides the full recipe so that you can bake a variety of delights at home. In addition, she presents complete instructions for beautifully arranging the nonperishable ingredients in a Mason jar so that you can give the jar--complete with baking instructions--to a friend. By adding just a few common ingredients, such as butter and eggs, your friend can then prepare fabulous home-baked cookies in a matter of minutes. Recipes include Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies, Blondies, Cranberry Dream Drops, Gingerbread Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and much, much more.

Whether you want to bake scrumptious cookies in your own kitchen, you'd like to give distinctive Mason jar cookie mixes to cookie-loving friends and family, or you're searching for a unique fund-raising idea, The Mason Jar Cookie Cookbook is the perfect book. It just may bring home-baked cookies back in style.

Library Journal

Parks's "Mason jar cookies" are cookies whose dry ingredients are layered in a 1-quart canning jar, ready to give-along with the recipe-as a gift to friends and others. She includes 50 recipes for easy cookies and bars, each one set up as a two-page spread: the complete recipe is given on the left page, and the facing page provides instructions on "creating the jar"-a diagram of the specific way the ingredients should be layered in the jar, along with a box (that can be photocopied) providing a list of the eggs, butter, etc., needed in addition to the dry ingredients and a concise version of the recipe. Many of the recipes are familiar, but both home bakers and "crafters," as Parks calls them, will find her book of interest; for larger baking collections.