Monday, May 9, 2011

Happy Mother's Day...in a Jar


I saw this idea a couple of months ago and have been putting my desserts in jars every since.  It is such an ingenious idea because not only do the mason jars make for easy transport (I made mini-pies when we went Smelt Fishing) and clean up (just pop 'em in the dishwasher) but they look so flippin' cute I can hardly stand it.

Since my lovely mother's birthday is the same week as mother's day,  I tend to go a little soft on the "Mother's Day" portion of the week and stick to cheap homemade gifts, you know, the kind mother's absolutely love.  Because even though I'm twenty eight, I will still draw her a picture and claim it is a 'present.'  You're welcome mom!  This year, I decided I would bake her something and since I'm on the "...in a jar" kick, I went with cupcakes.  To begin, I mixed up a batch of box cake mix and divided the batter among the mason jars.  One box filled 5 jars. 


I followed the cooking time suggestions for cupcakes but it took a little longer than it said on the box.  However, I did fill these suckers up pretty high and that resulted in...


Mason jars that overflowith.  Lucky for me and my oven, the batter did not explode everywhere, it merely puffed up.  I would, however, recommend putting them on a tray because watching these things in the oven was a little nerve racking.... it was touch and go there for awhile and I was sweating it out anticipating the burnt cake cleanup...not recommended.  I'm sure if you fill them up a little less then you would easily be able to get six jars made from one box of mix.  In order to create my "frosting grass" for the top, I decided it would be best to simply slice off the cake that extended past the jar so I would have a nice flat surface to work with.

The cupcake tops turned out to be a major blessing in disguise because a delicious cupcake sandwich (two tops connected with frosting in the middle) holds over certain people who become extremely disgruntled when they find out that they can't eat one of the cupcake jars... now!

While these little darlings were in the oven, I prepped my accessories.


I mixed up a batch of green frosting (meaning I put food coloring into a tub of Aldi brand frosting) and altered the stems of the flowers.  I cut the stems off about 1/16 of an inch from the base and stuck a toothpick up the middle.  It worked out perfectly and now there is no gross stem sitting in your cupcake.


After everything was assembled, I made little Mother's Day tags for the front and tied them on with some string.


Volia - Happy Mother's Day.  The best part about this little gift (mom, please stop reading now) is that the whole thing was practically free.  I had everything to make these in my cabinets and the flowers were sitting on my living room table.  However, if you do have to pick some of the items up, it will all be under $5 (Aldi cake mix and frosting comes out to $2...AMAZING and the flowers can be any kind you want). 

Love you MOM!!

I am planning on making more things in mason jars and am looking for an opportunity to make individual pot pies.  We will see how long this little trend will last but I thinking it will be awhile because I absolutely love it.  As long as people keep returning my jars, I'll keep filling them!!  

2 comments:

  1. Love you baby the moms day treats were awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are so CUTE! I found them from a google search of desserts in a jar.. (I too am on a make it in a jar kick! :) ) LOVE the title of your blog too! :)
    Have a GREAT day!

    ReplyDelete

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