Cupcakes in a Jar

Ok, so I admit freely these were not my idea. I first came across the concept on Pinterest and then found the source of this great idea on a blog I follow.

Cupcakes in a Jar

When I saw these, though...I knew I could have some fun. Easy to transport and fabulous looking? I had to give these a go! Even though the 4th of July is just, well, the 4th day in July here, the colors are the same as the Dutch flag, the EK Football championships were coming up (sadly, short-lived for the Dutch team this year) and I had an ''American Party" (what most Americans would call a Potluck) coming up for parent council I am on at Little Man's School...these fit the bill perfectly!

If you want to give recreating these a try yourself, here's my shopping list (and sources):

Click Here for a Printable Version

· Gel food colors - Red (no taste) and Royal Blue. I buy the Wilton gel colors.

· Icing / buttercream whitener - real buttercream is an ivory/soft yellow so to get it really white, you'll need to color it.

· I really recommend using baker's powder sugar and buttercream mix to get a smooth and tasty buttercream that you can color, swirl and pipe in a bag. This base recipe also gives a rich and creamy base flavor. If you like, you can flavor the buttercream any number of ways, but I left it as is for this creation.

· White Cake (either make or use a box mix) - the key is with this type of cake that you only use egg whites - the yolks will color the cake. I used a box mix as these were time intensive enough with the coloring. A box mix will yield 24 cupcakes, but with the coloring I got 22 cupcakes out of my batch in total.

· Plain cupcake wrappers - no need to get fancy here - leftovers (unused of course) work fine since you un-wrap them and cut them once cooled. If you had silicone muffin pans or wrappers, this would be a good project to use them for since you don't need the paper wrappers for transport and presentation once your cupcakes are cooled

· Glass jars with lids - I bought these 250ml jars at a glass wholesaler - depending on how many you want to make I guess you could save up pesto or baby food jars - but I didn't have enough time to eat that much pesto (and no more baby) plus deal with the removal of labels, glue, etc. In the US, they use canning jars - which if I could get my hands on here, I would use, too. As it was, this is as close as I could come. You can still fit 3 layers (1 1/2 cupcakes per jar) to get the effect, which is what mattered most to me, but the mouth of the ''Dutch'' jars are a bit smaller than the rest of the jar, so you need to do some careful fitting of the cupcake at each layer which I will describe below.

· Ribbon - If you had some laying around, use whatever. I did order some red, white and blue stripe ribbon because I didn't have any in the house and the dutch flag stripe just kind of completed the look I had in mind.

· Optional - spoons. Since I was taking these to a potluck, I wanted them to be ready to eat with no additional flatware or service needed from the hostess. I found these blue ones in the Xenos, 8 to a pack for a (1) euro. They even had the little hole in the end ready for threading with ribbon. Score!

· Also optional, as a finishing touch, you can add sprinkles to the top. I found red, white and blue sprinkles that were perfect for this.

Ok, now that you have everything - here's how make and assemble the ''cupcakes in a jar'':

3 layers of cake (red, white and blue)  and a chocolate option (in back)

First, make your buttercream. If you make it as outlined above, you'll need at least 2 hours prep and setting time, so if possible make this in advance or start with this so the setting up time is happening in parallel to the other steps....

1) Make your white cake mix according to your recipe or box directions.

2) from the completed mixture, first scoop your white cupcakes ( I use a small ice cream scoop) to fill the cupcake tins 2/3 full. I did 8 white cupcakes.
3) Scoop out 8 heaping scoops into a separate bowl. Now you only used two bowls for the three colors.
4) One bowl you will color blue, one bowl red. Normally, with the highly concentrated gel colors, a little goes a long way, but having said that - don't go the toothpick (cocktailprikker) route to add color to the cake batter - use the tip of a tiny teaspoon to get a good size drop at the end of the spoon. You'll need less blue coloring than red - but if you use less red, you’ll get pink (or worse, road kill color) instead of a Valentine’s day red. Since you need a good amount of color, that's why I recommend the ''no taste'' option in the shopping list.
5) Once each bowl of color is mixed, scoop into the muffin pans \ liners. I ''only'' got 7 each per color, brining my total batch count to 22 instead of the box guidance of 24. I can live with that.
6) if you have a large enough oven, bake both trays at once - I do 150 degrees for 17 -18 minutes, turning the trays once during baking.
7) check for doneness - with the colors it can be had to tell, and you don't really want the tops to go ''golden'' - so now you can use the toothpick or cocktailprikker to check. Insert into the middle of a cupcake in the middle of the pan. If the cake doesn't stick to the wood, they are done.
8) Cool the cupcakes on the counter in the pans for 1 minute - not longer.
9) Remove the cakes from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely. (at least 1 hour).
10) Cover and store (but do not refrigerate) for 1-2 days max. If you are making these ahead, after they have cooled completely, layer them in an airtight container, with bakpapier or parchment paper between the layers, add a layer of clingfilm before putting the lid on and store in the freezer for up to 3 weeks. The day of assembly, let the cakes come up to room temperature (at least 1 hour) before going to the next step - Assembly.

Now, to assemble the cakes -

11) Cut each cupcake in half horizontally

12) Fill 2 piping bags - 1 with white butter cream, 1 with 2 stripes each of red and blue striped butter cream (for tips how to stripe buttercream in the piping bag, see this great tutorial blog post)

13) Take a 1/2 blue cupcake and carefully fit it into the jar. If you use the bottom half, this will go easier - the tops can be more likely to crumble, so I fit the top halves top up rather than tops down - and guide it to the bottom. If there are crumbs stuck to the inside, take a paper towel and wipe the sides clean before proceeding.

14) Pipe a layer of white buttercream (I made a full circle on the outer edge and a bit in the middle so that there was not too much cream to cake. it's nice to see the ring of white and keeps it from looking like there are gaps in between the layers.)
15) Repeat steps 13 and 14 with white cake
16) Repeat step 13 with the red cupcake

I prefer to repeat 13-16 for the number of cupcakes I want/ need to make, creating all the jars, and then do the final piping in one go. If you want to finish each jar individually, go directly to step 17 and repeat :-)

17) Take the piping bag with the blue and red stripes and pipe a swirl (using a 1M tip) on the top of the cupcake. I pipe from outside towards the center, in a counter clockwise motion.
18) Top with red, white and blue sprinkles. (If you have a little helper in the house, this is a perfect job for them!
19) Seal the jars with the lids. The sprinkles will start to ''bleed'' color into the buttercream, so I would not do assembly more than the night before (max 24 hours in advance). I stored the assembled jars in the pantry where it is much cooler than the rest of the house. Refrigeration will change the texture of the buttercream once piped and increase the bleed - so avoid refrigerating decorated cupcakes whenever possible as a general rule.
20) Finally - take a length of ribbon, add a spoon and tie around the jar. I used a sticky dot to keep the ribbon in place while tying and to make sure the ribbon didn't slide off during storage and transport.

Top View (with sprinkles on top, of course!)

Display, serve, enjoy - I can say without ego these were a hit. I had a great time making them, and they bought smiles to the faces just about everyone. These (and all the possible iterations and variations) will go in the ''remake'' pile for sure!

Football (soccer ball) cupcakes

What do you make for a (almost) 7 year old boy who is soccer (football) crazy?

Soccer ball (football) cupcakes, of course.

I googled and searched (but had not yet discovered pinterest) but couldn't find anything that looked real. Everything pre-made was either cutsey or a bit abstract or the homemade ones were made with frosting and edible markers. I wanted to make fondant footballs...this  *must* be possible?!

After searches and blog posts and a clear idea of what I did NOT want the end result to be, I finally cobbled together the tools and created my own step by step method. I loved the end result, but these are not quick. Easy - yes....but detailed.

ready to bring to school!

I made these for both his class, the after school care and his football team. All told, about 45 cupcakes. I loved the end result, but I've got to be honest - these were time intensive. I did a lot of the pre assembly steps in the 2-3 weeks before the parties or it would have been impossible for me to do it all in one setting.

If you want to recreate these little masterpieces - pictures don't do these justice - you'll need the following:

Click here for a printable version

• Cake mix  - made or purchased - we did vanilla and chocolate swirled cupcakes using devils food and yellow cake mix, which you can buy here - two boxes make approx 48 cupcakes.
• Pre colored fondant in 3 colors - leaf green, black and white. If you want to color your own or make homemade fondant - you'll need to use gel colors to do so, and black is one of the hardest colors to get black - usually it comes out more grey. I used 250 grams pre colored bricks of the black and green and more (closer to 500 grams) of the white. I'll explain why more white is needed later.
• Pentagon and Hexagon (5 and 6 sided) cut-outs to make the soccer balls. Using this kit you can also make 3D soccer balls -  but I wanted the flat circles for this project.
• cookie or fondant cutters to cut out the balls - I used the same size for the green and white to make rounds, then when I had the ball all assembled,  a slightly smaller size (the middle of the 3 fondant cutters) to cut out the final soccer balls.
• cupcake wrappers - I used green football themed ones
• edible glitter or pearl dust in leaf green to make the ''grass'' look real.
• Silicone mat and rolling pin (also covered in silicone) - you can pick these up anywhere. I don't have a name brand of either tool and they work just fine

Then, depending on how much time you have, and how far out you plan, follow these steps:

1) bake the cupcakes as per the cake directions in the liners. I made these ahead, cooled them completely and then stacked them in an airtight container with parchment paper between the layers and put them in the freezer. Do this the day you make them, but only after they are completely cooled. take them out the day of assembly. they only need about 1 hour to come back to room temp.

While the cupcakes are cooling (or on another day all together) begin the assembly of the soccer balls. You will need the 5 and 6 sided cutters, a sharp knife or fondant tool and 2 different sizes of round cutter, together with the white and black fondant. I used a circle round cutter the size of the cupcake tops for both the green grass and the white fondant ''bases''.

2) Roll out a fairly thin (but still possible to pick up without splitting or tearing) layer of white fondant. Make with your cupcake-top sized cutter anywhere from 6 to 8 circle bases at a time.

The base circles

3) Roll out a thicker layer of white fondant and use the 6 sided (hexagon) shaped cutter. Do not press so hard that the fondant sticks and comes up with the tool, but hard enough that you have a clear imprint and the edges will separate from the sheet easily. For each completed soccer ball, I needed 5 white shapes. I liked to make the cut outs in batches of 6-8 per session, so you would need to punch out between 30 and 40 per time. Using your knife or fondant tool, clean up the edges as you separate the shapes from the sheet. I also used the knife at this point to make sure all the cut outs would lift off the mat so the shapes stay intact. Move the completed cut outs to one side or store in airtight container while you work with the black fondant.

the hexagon cutter cuts 2 at a time, you'll need to cut them apart

end result

4) Roll the black fondant to a similar thickness. Using the 5 sided (pentagon) cut out, you will need to repeat the directions above. For each completed soccer ball, you will need 6 pentagon shapes. so for a batch of 6-8, make between 36 and 48 pentagons.

5 sided tool cut outs in black (6 per ball)

The final cut outs

Now, using a small paint or decorating brush and a small cup or bowl of water, it's time to assemble the soccer balls:
5) taking one of the white rounds, lay it int he center of your mat.
6) pick up a black cut out, use the water and brush to ''glue'' the back and and place it slightly off center on the white fondant base.

The first glued pentagon

7) now take a white cut out and align it against one side of the black cut out, using your knife's blunt edge or fondant tool to define the space between the white and black as well as smooth the outside edge. repeat until all five white edges are aligned to a side of the center black pentagon.

completed white round

8) now take a black cut out and using your brush and water as glue,  fit it in between the white cut outs, building the next layer outwards. Again, define the edges between the black and whites shapes, while smoothing and using the outside to ''push'' the black to completely fill the spaces between the whites.

the final black round

When you have all the shapes on the base, let sit for 1-2 mins before using the fondant cutter for your final football.

9) using the middle size of the fondant cutter rounds, cut out your final football shape. The rounds you can store in an airtight container for at least 2 weeks. I stored them in the pantry, out of direct sunlight and temperature swings. Use parchment paper between layers, and because I did not want these to harden, I also used a layer of clingfilm before putting the lid on.

position the cutter and....voila!

Once all your footballs (soccer balls) are made, you can start on the 'grass'.
10) Using the cookie cutter that was used for the white bases, make your cupcake sized round cut outs from the rolled green fondant. you want it to be about the same thickness as the other cut outs (minus the base). Some kids eat the fondant (mine loves it) and some ate the footballs and peeled the grass off. either way, you don't want it to be too thick to eat or so think it won't peel off if so desired.

11) Using the paint or decorating brush from the ''glue'' step, stir the pearl dust in a small amount of liquid - I used lemon extract - and then brush the rounds with the pearl dust mixture. the pearl dust needs at least an hour to dry and set on the fondant before you try to store them or stack them in any way.
12) using a bit of butter cream or frosting, spread a layer on the cupcakes
13) place the green grass layer on the top of the cupcakes and ''mold'' the round if necessary around the edges of the cupcake
14) finally, using a dot of butter cream or frosting, adhere the the footballs to the grass. I centered them and then lightly shaped them to fit the contours of the cake.

Completed cupcake

15) repeat steps 12 -14 until all cupcakes are finished.

Top view

For his Birthday party, we carried the football (soccer) theme through and had a football pull pinata, football theme scavenger hunt - activity, and because mom was all cupcaked out, we got out the chocolate fountain for some interactive fun and sweet treat. You can see the soccer (football theme party here on Kevin's blog.

Enjoy - and let me know if you attempt these!