I was looking for a jar recipe that didn't contain brown sugar (b.c. it gets hard), but still tasted yummy. Jackpot!! I did a trial run last night after reading the reviews, and I'm very pleased (after making some changes). One reviewer suggested using only 2 c. sugar and 3 eggs (thanks!) & that made it fit in the jar perfectly. To cut down the "all sugar" look, I layered as follows: flour mixture first, then 1/3 c. cocoa, 1 c. sugar, 1/3 c. cocoa, 1 c. sugar, then the pecans. It looked better that way. I used cones I made from printer paper to fill the jar, and after each addition I tapped the jar on the counter to settle the ingredients. When I mixed up the batch to bake, I did add a tsp. vanilla with the 3 eggs. As someone else mentioned, it was a little dry, so I added another 1/4 c melted butter for a total of 1 cup. Just right!! My husband (who doesn't like sweets that much) had 3 in a row! They were very moist and delish. Thanks so much, now I have x-mas gifts!
I though I'd give this recipe a try before gift giving. I modified slightly: increasing butter to 1 cup adding a teaspoon vanilla and using a vegetable spray instead of greasing and flouring the pan. I ended up with moist tasty brownies that came out of the pan easily. Needless to say several jars of this mix will leave my kitchen as gifts. It is an excellent recipe!
Ok a few things. First the taste definitely gets 5 stars BUT only with the user recommended changes to the recipe. Those changes are as follows: use 1 c. melted butter 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla(this requires you to change the info on the tag you print; trust me you want to do that i did a test run and they are sooooooooo good w/ the changes). Also for the ingrediants in the jar it's fine w/ only 2 c. sugar. OK second another major problem is getting everything to fit. I used 1 quart wide-mouth canning jars. You HAVE to pack down everything!!!! I found making my hand into a fist and using my knuckles and back of hand to pack down ingrediants works really well.Pack very tight!!! seriously.In this order Flour baking powder and salt PACK! then cocoa PACK! then wipe the inside of the jar with a dry paper towel(it gets pretty messy and will make the above sugar look dirty) then put the sugar (packing here helps only a little bit but still do it). Another reveiwer figured out a clever trick which i will reiterate here "To cut down the "all sugar" look I layered as follows: flour mixture first then 1/3 c. cocoa 1 c. sugar 1/3 c. cocoa 1 c. sugar then the pecans." This works well and looks good but i ran out of time so just did the norm way and it looks fine. Ok by now there is very little room in the jar even with all that packing. So I basically improvised. I put about 1/4 c each of nuts and choc chips. You could do just one or the other but my point
I make these with the changes suggested by the other reviewers and it is such an incredible hit wherever I serve it. The best part about it is how easy it is to make. (Also cut out a couple of pieces for yourself when it's right out of the oven. It's gooey and messy but utterly heavenly.) The changes - 3 eggs 1 cup butter 2 cups sugar 3/4 cup pecans 1 tsp vanilla essence and 1 cup choc. chips.
I think that the brownies are great however when I made the jars the cocoa made them look like a mess. It was seeping into the other layers and I panicked that I had wasted a perfectly good jar. I ended up sticking a chopstick down the side about every inch to make it look like sand art. If I had left it I wouldn't have even thought of sending it out as a gift.
I made this one night late last week when two friends of mine and my fiancee was over. It was soooo good! Everyone gobbled it up before I new it! I left out the nuts just because I'm not fond of nuts on my brownies. I even had to make them again the next night our friends practically begged even helped! The 2nd day we made it i put in a half a cup of milk chocolate chips it made it taste even better! I will make these up for x-mas this year!
I was looking for an "in a jar" recipe for teacher gifts at our school. After reading all the reviews for this recipe I thought it would be the perfect gift. NOT! We used one-quart wide-mouth mason jars as the recipe indicated however not all the ingredients fit and all you could see was SUGAR. Not much of a layered look. I was very disappointed. All my volunteers ended up using less sugar and JAMMING the nuts in last which didn't even fit quite as many as I would have liked. I have yet to taste the recipe but after all that work they better be good. Just disappointed. I thought they'd look nicer than they actually do maybe we did something wrong.
We plan to give soup and brownie mixes this year for xmas and although I am not a brownie fan we had to taste-test before giving these as gifts. My family seemed to like them (although I only thought they were okay-but then again I am biased as I don't really care for brownies in the first place). Therefore these will be packaged for gifts. Be careful with the cocoa! It can make your jar a mess so I would recommend using a filter and letting it "settle" before wiping the jar clean for the next layer. I'm sure these will be well received!
I tried these before making them as gifts and they were good not the best I've ever had but good (not as moist as I like 'em). I used the suggestion from a previous review to use a paper funnel to get the layers into the jar I also tapped the jar on the counter to even it out before adding the next layer (it also added a pretty "snowfall" effect). I also did Cowboy Cookie Mix in a Jar (also on this site) for Christmas gifts and thought they turned out much prettier than the brownie mix because they have many more different layers and they were much easier!
