DIY: VALENTINE'S GIFT FOR FRIENDS.

After sharing my DIY Valentine's gift for loved ones this time last week I thought that it would be fun to come up with something special for the other important people in your life, whether that be your family or friends! Continuing along the theme of hand made gifts I decided to go down the edible route this time round as everyone loves food and homemade treats are infinitely the best. 

Rather than simply whipping up a batch of double chocolate cookies and delivering them to a friend I decided to create a little DIY cookie in a jar. You essentially just layer all of the dry ingredients into a large air tight jar and then leave the rest up to the recipient. Simply attach a gift tag with the instructions such as add 1 egg, 200g of butter and a splash of milk along with the baking time/temperature.  To make my DIY cookie in a jar a little more Valentine's Day themed I decided to add this adorable gift tag which is actually a free download from Wayfair.co.uk, all you have to do is download the free gift tags, print them onto some A4 paper before cutting them out and punching a hole at the top. 

If you fancy spoiling a friend this Valentine's Day with a DIY double chocolate cookie in a jar the recipe is as follows. Of course you could just make them yourself and gift them that way if you prefer! 

INGREDIENTS:

200g unsalted butter, 300g caster sugar, 1 large egg, 275g self raising flour, 75g cocoa powder, 200g of chocolate and a splash of milk.  

METHOD:

Start by mixing the butter until it becomes lighter in colour and softer in consistency. Once the butter is ready you can add all of the dry ingredients such as the flour, sugar and cocoa without worrying about sifting. Once that is all combined simply add in your egg and a splash of milk to loosen the mixture. You will now have a delicious cookie dough and all you need to do at this point is add is the chocolate. For the DIY I chose to use chocolate chips purely because they look nicer in a jar but I've used broken up bars of chocolate before and it works just as well. Now your cookie mix is finished simply place a sheet of baking paper on a tray and start portioning up your cookies. This mix will make roughly 12 large cookies as seen in the photo above or roughly 24 small cookies. Now all you have to do is pop them into a pre-heated oven at 220°C for 10 minutes. 

This recipe is absolutely fool proof and you end up with some seriously delicious double chocolate cookies, crunchy on the outside but still gooey and delicious in the centre.