5 more recipes for cakes in jars!

1. Peanut Butter Cups (cake) in a jar

I’ve been a bit obsessed with peanut butter and chocolate. It’s like Jenny came and invaded my brain. Everything from ice cream to cookies to cupcakes. I want that silky peanut butter to stand up to good, strong chocolate and melt together to become something wonderful. So into the devil’s food batter went the peanut butter, baked into a cake in a jar and then topped with dark chocolate. Perfectly portable for your spring picnic.

Peanut Butter Cups in Cake in a Jar

12 8-ounce canning jars with lids
canola oil spray
8 ounces peanut butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 recipe Devil’s food cupcakes or cake mix
8-10 ounces dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the inside of the canning jars with the canola oil. Mix together powdered sugar and peanut butter until smooth. Roll into 1.5-2″ balls. Scoop 3-4 tablespoons of cake batter into the bottom of each jar using a large scoop. Place a peanut butter ball into the center of each jar and add an additional 2-3 tablespoons of batter. Wipe up any batter that hit the outside of the jar or around the rim.

Bake at 350 degrees on a baking sheet for 15-20 minutes or until tops spring back when touched. Remove from oven. Immediately place 1/2 ounce of chocolate on top of the hot cake. Seal with ring and lid and wait for them to pop. Using a towel, pick up the jar and turn to coat the entire top of the cake with chocolate. Store in the fridge for up to a week.

Makes 12 cupcakes in a jar.

2. Easter Tie-Dye Cake in a jar

Since last weeks Rainbow Cake-In-A-Jar has had me thinking all week about a holiday-inspired variation. Take the classic colors of a rainbow, pastel them up slightly, and suddenly you have this springtime treat that is as pretty to look at as it is to eat. While I layered the colors carefully in the Rainbow Cake In a Jar, I thought it might be fun to add a tye-dyed look to this cake by more loosely layering the colors.  Once cooked, the cake can be topped with a hefty dollop of white vanilla icing, or tintest a merry shade of yellow to finish off the treat.

Easter Tie-Dye Cake-in-a-Jar

1 box white cake mix made according to package instructions
Neon food coloring in pink, yellow, lime green, turquoise, and purple
3 one-pint canning jars
1 can vanilla frosting
Rainbow sprinkles
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly wash and dry the inside of each canning jar. Spray the inside of each jar thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Scoop about 1/2 cups of cake batter into five small bowls. It doesn’t have to be perfect, don’t panic if you get a little more of less of one color than another. Tint each bowl of cake batter with about 4-6 drops of food coloring for a perfect pastel.

Spoon about 3 tablespoons of the blue batter into the bottom of each jar. Spoon equal amounts of then green, yellow, pink, and purple batters.  Use a knife to gently swirl the colors together slightly.  Place the jars in a shallow baking dish, add about 1/4″ in water in the baking dish. Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Remove jars and allow to cool completely before scooping a small portion from the top of your cake and adding a hey dollop of vanilla buttercream to the top. Sprinkle & serve, or cover with a lid and store in the fridge or pop into the mail & surprise someone you love

3. Red White and Blue cake (in a jar)

We here at Babble have created all sorts of cake in a jars, but this one is custom-made for the Memorial Day weekend. Cakes in jars are a great way to pull together simple, portable desserts for picnics and parties. No worries about how to transport a big box of cupcakes to a potluck without mussing the icing. Just toss your cakes in jars in a bag, or back of the car, or picnic basket, and you’ll have a treat that  arrives at it’s destination just as nicely as it looks sitting on your kitchen countertop.

While many cakes can be baked in jars, this one is baked in a large pan then crumbled into place in mason jars, thus allowing the final product to look as bright, colorful, and perfectly layered as the photo you see above.

Red, White, and Blue Cake-In-A-Jar

• 1 white cake mix
• 1 tub vanilla frosting
• red and blue food coloring

Mix cake mix according to package directions. Separate 1 1/2 cups of the cake mix into a separate bowl. Tint on of the bowls bright red and one bright blue with your food coloring. Pour each batter into it’s own greased 8″ round pan and bake according to package directions. Cool cakes completely.

To assemble jars, crumble cake into large pieces.  Fill the bottom 1/3 of the jar with blue cake. Top with a thin layer of frosting. Add a layer of crumbled red cake on top of that, then finish off your jars with a final layer of frosting. Add sprinkles, if desired.

Twist caps onto the top of your jars. Store at room temperature for up to 24 hours, and in the fridge for up to three days. Because you aren’t sealing the cakes into the jars, this treat is best when not mailed via snail mail.

Makes 3 medium-sized cakes-in-jars (shown in picture) or 6 small, cupcake-sized cakes-in-jars.

4. Ice Cream Sundae cake in a jar

It doesn’t take much to draw my daughter to a cupcake. She’ll eat just about any kind of cake with icing on it. When we were making these together the other day I was trying to think of fun ways to decorate them and she pulled out a jar of sprinkles. All of sudden we were inspired to top our favorite creamy chocolate cupcakes with a large swirl of frosting to look like whipped cream, sprinkles and a small drizzle of hot fudge sauce. We had such a blast making them look like hot fudge sundaes. Her favorite part was presenting one to her Dad when got home from work to see if he could be tricked into thinking it was ice cream instead of a cupcake. Of course he could, but he didn’t let on. He let her have her fun, and eat it too.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup light brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1 pinch kosher salt

¾ cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

1/3 cup brewed coffee

1 batch homemade buttercream frosting OR Frozen Whipped Topping

Toppings:

Sprinkles

Hot fudge sauce

5 large cherries

5 8-ounce Ball Jars

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Place 5 jars on a cookie sheet with space between each one and place a cupcake liner in each one.

2. Use a hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well. Then, add the vanilla, cocoa, baking soda, and salt and mix everything well. Add the flour and the yogurt in two parts until smooth. Carefully stir in the coffee and stir the mixture until smooth.

3. Pour the batter into the jar until they are each about 2/3 rds full and bake them for 25 minutes, or until their tops are firm to the touch.

4. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely. Place the buttercream frosting in a pastry bag or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off. Twirl a large dollop of frosting on each cupcake to make it look like whipped cream. Top them with some sprinkles, a drizzle of hot fudge sauce and a cherry on top!

5. Pinkalicious Cake in a jar

In our house, there’s all sorts of children’s books we love. But, my youngest daughter is particularly fond of Pinkalicious, the story of a little girl who loves pink so much, she turns pink.  If you’ve got a little princess in your family, how fabulous would it be to mail her a jar of bright pink cake with sweet strawberry frosting? These easy little microwave cakes in jars make the idea pinkalicous treat for just about any girlie girl. A fun dessert for baby showers, a clever birthday treat, an afterschool treat that says “pinkaboo”!  The pink possibilities are endless!

Pinkalicious Cake-In-A-Jar

• 1 box strawberry cake mix, prepared according to package directions
• 1 jar strawberry frosting
• 3 pint-sized canning jars
• Pink sprinkles

Thoroughly wash and dry the inside of each canning jar. Spray the inside of each jar thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Spoon about 1 cup of cake batter into each jar. Cook one jar at a time in the microwave for 1-2 minutes, or until the cake is cooked through. Allow jars to cool slightly, then scoop the top half of cake from the jar. Plop a dollop of frosting into the center of the jar, then replace the top half of the cake back in the jar. Add enough frosting to fill the rest of the jar. Finish off with pink sprinkles.

Serve immediately or cover with a lid and store in the fridge or pop into the mail & surprise someone you love! Cakes should stay fresh in the fridge for up to 5 days, and can be mailed so long as they are topped with a canning jar lid and arrive at their final destination within 3 days

Stay tuned for more fantastic ideas for cakes in jars!  And if you're runnin low on jars, you can check out amazon.