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!