I just love these ideas and first saw them on the kindle book gifts and crafts section.

These are so easy to prepare and make, and as one friend said, even smell like Christmas!

Made these a couple of days ago and they went down a storm! I only had 50g walnuts to hand so added 50g chopped nuts. Also only had 100g tropical fruit so added 40g dried cranberries.

Easy to make, a very nice twist on a regular spiced fruit muffin.

Really fab gift! :)

Made these muffins to test out before making the jars up for gifts. I agree with other reviewers that the smell was lovely and Christmassy but was disappointed with the results. The mixture made 14 muffins but they were a bit tasteless and doughy. I will be looking for an alternative for edible Christmas gifts, which is a shame as the jars look great in the picture.

Everyone loved this gift :)

I made these up as Christmas presents after trying out the muffins myself; they were delicious! The 1 litre kilner jars from Ikea are cheap, and the mix fits in perfectly. Instead of 140g tropical fruits, I weighed 100g (from Holland and Barrett) and topped up with 40g of dried cranberries which added more colour and was Christmassy. The finished jars looked great!

I've done these 2 years on the trot now as teacher prezzies - they're brilliant as the kids can make them up themselves and personalise the labels. They were well received and apparently very tasty! I got the jars from Asda - £1.40 each, much cheaper than Lakeland.

I made the muffins and they are great. I would like to give jars as gift as well, but the ingredients are too much for a 1 liter jar. First I put less dried fruits, next time I made two smaller jars (one for floor, spices and sugar and another for the walnut and fruits).

hi, does anyone have any other recipe like this. i'm making this for family but would like to do two different kinds.

I just love this idea!! Just wondered if anyone has tried this with savory ingredients instead? I've already made a huge batch of red onion chutney for my gift hampers and thought it would be a nice accompaniment for some muffins.

I was thinking maybe using sun dried tomatoes some bay leaves/dried herbs to make it look good and adding cheese onto the recipe card. what you think? any suggestions would be great! thanks!

I saw this recipe and gift idea in a spring 2011 issue of "Baking". Yet another example of the BBC Good Food enterprise recycling recipes. It's a good idea though, and makes excellent muffins.

Thank you, thank you made this for Secret Santa!! is fab!!

I want to make up mixes in 500ml jars - does anyone know if this recipe will work ok if I just half the ingredients?

Thanks

Christmas gifts sorted - will spend a weekend making a load of these up to keep tucked away for those "surprise" moments when someone unexpectedly hands you a gift and you need one ready to return!

(PS - 1 litre Kilner type jars are 99p in Ikea at the moment!)

beautiful recipe and a nice gift to give away aswell as very creative.Definately will use again!

Can anyone comment on the "use within 4 weeks" instruction? I was thinking of making these up for the school fayre but its at the end of November so in theory they'd be out of date by Christmas!

Was going to do this last year for gifts but never had the jars, this year been saving the large coffee jars for the mix, tested it last night and very yummy, like the idea of the mixture in jars for others to do, will be adding to my hamper this year, along with possibly other muffin mix ideas.

definately interesting. I love the jar, and how those ingredients looked in it.

No muffin trays available - mix made 3 doz cupcakes though - oh dear!!!

Will have to try the frosting idea.