Gooey White Chocolate, Walnut and Cranberries Blondies

The holidays are officially upon us. I, like so many others, fall in love with this time of year all over time and time again. There’s just something so special about a tree twinkling with bright lights, Christmas music playing softly in the background and being among family and friends at this time of year that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

For me, one of the most fun of all the Christmas traditions is gift giving. I just love picking out that perfect gift for someone, knowing their face will light up when they receive it. The gift doesn’t necessarily have to be fancy or expensive; in fact, some of my favorite gifts to give family and friends are of the edible variety, costing practically nothing. So this year, I’ve partnered up with Diamond of California in their #giftsinjars campaign to bring you the perfect edible gift to give to family and friends.

Even more, I turned the actual making of the gift into a festive holiday party with my girlfriends, and there’s nothing I love more than a good old fashioned holiday party. We sipped on hot chocolate, chatted incessantly and assembled these White Chocolate, Walnut and Cranberry Blondies to give out as gifts. It was the perfect excuse to get together, nibble on a little food and share lots of laughs while simultaneously checking off a few gifts from our lists.

I know I’ve said over and over and over (and over!) again that I don’t really have the baking gene, but I have to brag a little bit here, because I really hit it out of the ballpark with these guys. Not only do they have that perfect chew factor you look for in the perfect blondie, but they’re also wickedly gooey, almost falling apart before you can even take the bar from the serving platter to your mouth. Melted white chocolate and butter in the base batter facilitate in an irresistibly rich blondie, while white chocolate chips, toasted walnuts and sweet cranberries give the perfect amount of texture and crunch in each bite.

If you’re planning on giving these as gifts, the ingredients you’ll need are, flour, white sugar, brown sugar, Diamond of California walnuts (they’re truly the best!), dried cranberries, baking soda and white chocolate chips. You can layer each ingredient as you wish, just make sure to leave a ½ cup of white chocolate chips at the top so the recipient can easily get them out since they need to be melted with the butter. Once you layer all of the ingredients, all that’s left is to package them beautifully!

Now, I don’t proclaim to be the craftiest person in the world, but even I managed to make these look adorable. I just bought some festive baker’s twine at the craft store along with some blank gift cards, holiday stamps (which were 40% off at Michael’s), a gold stamp pad and some cute snowflake and Christmas tree accessories and BAM instant gift. I set everything out on the table for the girls to get creative, and everyone made their own gift tags and decorated jars to their taste. It would even be the perfect project to get the kiddies involved with, just make sure you don’t have a white tablecloth below all the stamping material like I did…. Clearly I don’t have any kiddos of my own yet…

To give the instructions with the gift, I like to print directions in a pretty font on a small piece of paper and attach it to the back of the gift tag, or you could even print it larger on a good quality card stock and attach it to the back of the jar. Either way, it’s a gift anyone will adore because who doesn’t love a gift that’s handmade AND edible?!