Last week, as a craft for our 4th Little Flowers Meeting this year, the girls all made “Starlight Cookies for Christmas Eve” Jar Mixes! This idea/recipe was originally submitted to Catholic Cuisine by Lisa from Are We There Yet?.
We made a few slight modifications to the recipe, adding a bit more flour and changing around the order of the ingredients to make the bottom half of the jars look a bit prettier.
Note: If you do this, be sure to add the brown sugar, packing it down to create a hard surface, before adding the white sugar… Ask me how I know! 😉
I found some pretty light blue cloud fabric covered with stars at Walmart. I used a salad plate (approx. 7″) as a template and then had the girls cut it into circles using pinking sheers. We finished decorating the jars with silver stars and a instruction tag. (You can download and print the tags I created here – printing page 2 on the back of page 1.)
To prepare the jar ingredients, layer the following:
1/2 C chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 C white chocolate chips
1/2 C dried cranberries
1/3 C packed brown sugar
1/3 C sugar
1/2 C rolled oats
*followed by*
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
*mixed thoroughly with*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
The symbolism of both the ingredients and steps to make the cookies, is just beautiful! The girls are all looking forward to making them during the last week of Advent, and our other children are asking to make more jars to give away as gifts!
Starlight Cookies
To be made on or for Christmas Eve
in Honor of our Blessed Mother’s and St. Joseph’s
Journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem
Contained in this jar:
Chopped Nuts to represent the rocky road the little family traveled on
White chocolate chips for the stars in the sky
Dried cranberries whose tartness symbolize the doors shut to Mary and Joseph
Brown sugar for the brown hills of Bethlehem
Sugar to represent the snow
Rolled oats to symbolize the animals in the stable where they found shelter
Flour for the simple goodness of the shepherds in the fields they passed
To make the cookies:
Think of the preparation St. Joseph and Our Blessed Mother must have made for this journey to Bethlehem: Heat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper.
For the light of Heaven: In a medium bowl, beat together 1/2 cup softened butter, 1 egg, and 1 tsp of vanilla until fluffy.
Add the hardships of the journey to the light of Heaven: Add the entire jar of ingredients, and mix until well blended. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets
Remember the hardships of Jesus’ life on earth and His passion: Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, or until edges brown.
Anticipate His coming: Cool on baking sheets or remove to cool on wire racks.
Appreciate the joy and promise of His birth: Enjoy eating them!
Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas!
Prayer of Mothers
Father in heaven, grant me the grace to appreciate the dignity which you have conferred on me. Let me realize that not even the Angels have been blessed with such a privilege—to share in your creative miracle and bring new Saints to heaven. Make me a good mother to all my children after the example of Mary, the Mother of your Son. Through the intercession of Jesus and Mary I ask your continued blessings on my family. Let us all be dedicated to your service on earth and attain the eternal happiness of your kingdom in heaven. Amen.
This is so impressive. I will be sharing this idea with our youth ministry at church with credit to shower of roses…….thank you so much for your continuing inspiration
Praying for you and the new little one on the way! God bless you.
What a lovely LF craft! And an even lovelier gift!
I'm glad you brought this back to the surface (from Catholic Cuisine). I never had a chance to figure out a similar "free-of" recipe but it's definitely on my last for next year! These turned out beautiful – love the added touches.
I think I will be doing this gift for my friends at church and also in my neighborhood Jessica. Once I have my photos taken I will send it to you and also refer back to you from my blog. You are such an inspiration to many. God bless you and thank you for sharing your many beautiful and blessed ideas! =)
This is such a great idea! I love it!
This is wonderful, Jessica! Thank you for sharing it. These would make great gifts for family.
I love these – and will be making them for my children's teachers over the weekend! They go to Catholic school so it will definitely be appreciated.
What a great gift for my granddaughter's catechism teacher!
Oh this is so beautiful Jessica. I love how you combine the spiritual with the tasks. Thank you for sharing…I'm going to try my hand at this.
Jessica, this has become a family favorite. But I can never quite get my mind wrapped around White = snow (in the desert? in Israel? my kids just don't buy it)
Any chance we could change the white to represent Mary's purity?
🙂
Love your ideas!
Excellent suggestion! I will try and update my printable and add it as an option sometime this week.
I made these for my girls RE teachers. I'm sure they are going to love them.
Can't wait to try this, but could you tell me the size of jar you used?
It only took me another two years but I finally made these and easily converted the recipe (also a story card instruction): http://justlikemary.blogspot.com/2013/12/gluten-free-starlight-cookies.html.