DIY Bride™

It’s project day!

Vintage crafts and craft techniques are rocking my holiday gift-giving world this year. I’ve been having fun resurrecting things I made as a not-so-crafty kid and giving them a modern update.

Just in time for holiday gift-giving I rediscovered baking bread in a glass jar and thought that it’d make an awesomely fun wedding favor. The DIY Bride version replaces bread with the ever-popular cupcake.

We’re going to bake cupcakes in glass jars! It’s perfectly safe and the jar serves double duty as a baking vessel and ultra-cool packaging.

And if you’re looking for a neat edible gift for the holidays, this is a winner.

There are lots of notes for this project so be sure to read all the way to the bottom before you attempt.

Supplies Needed:

• 1/2 pint wide-mouth canning jars with lids
• Baking sheet
• Silpat fiberglass mat or parchment paper
• Batch of your favorite cake batter
• Shortening
• Flour
• Paper towels
• 8.5” x 11” (or larger) cardstock or decorative paper
• Ribbon
• Paper cutter
• Circle cutter
• Double-sided tape

Directions:

1. The first step is to sterilize the jars and lids. If you have a sanitation cycle in your dishwasher, run your lids and jars through a full cycle. Otherwise you’ll need to boil the jars and lids for about 15 mintues in a pot of water. This will kill any bacteria or other contaminants that may be clinging to your jars.
2. Heat oven to 325 degrees. (Do not bake jars at a higher temperature even if your recipe calls for it. This is for your safety. Glass jars may shatter at high oven temps. That’s a very bad thing.)
3. Make your favorite cake batter. I’m using a yummy mint chocolate cake here because it shows up nicely in the pictures. You can use any flavor you’d like.
4. Take the jars out of the boiling water. Dry them with a clean, dry towel (or a paper towel).
5. Next, grease and flour the inside of the jar to prevent sticking cakes. Using a paper towel, scoop up some shortening and smear it on the inside of each jar in a thin, even layer. Now put a scoop of all purpose flour inside of each jar. Turn the jar on its side and rotate the jar to disperse the flour over the shortening. Shake the excess flour out of the jar.
6. Using a ladel or measuring cup, fill each jar about half-way. For these jars, it takes just under 1/2 cup. (Note about the picture: I overfilled the jar. The cupcakes got too big when baking this particular recipe.)
7. Place filled jars on a baking sheet. I put a silicone Silpat mat underneath my jars to catch any spills and to help heat the jars evenly. You don’t need a Silpat but, if you don’t use one, I do reccomend putting a layer of parchment paper underneath the jars for easy cleanup if spills happen.
8. Place sheet of jars in the oven. Bake. This recipe took about 22 minutes. I recommend starting to check your recipe at about 15 minutes and then every 5 minutes or so thereafter.
9. Pull baking sheet out of the oven and set it on a rack to cool. Beware here: the glass jars are HOT. Like sear-your-skin-right-off HOT. I bumped one with my thumb. It hurts very much.
10. Once your jars o’ cake are cool, you’re free to frost them. I reccomend a nice buttercream. If you want, you can remove the cakes and wipe out the jar to make them look cleaner. They should just fall out if you turn them upside down.
11. Take your lids and lid rings out of the water. Dry them with a clean towel. Put them on the jars. Now you’re free to decorate the jars.
12. I used a paper belly band around the jar and a length of 1/4” grosgrain ribbon around the lid. I measured around the width of the jar and cut thin strips of cardstock to fit around it. Mine was 10” with an 1/4” for overlap. (10.25” total) For the top, I used a Fiskar’s circle cutter to cut a circle (2.5”) and secured it down with double-sided tape. On top of that, I used a decorative punch, decorated with a rubber stamp and glitter glue, to create a label.

Notes:

1. These jars I used are Kerr brand and were $9.99 for 12 at my local supermarket.
2. When sealed properly, these cakes will stay moist and yummy for several days. Some people will say even weeks but I wouldn’t push it for more than 5 days, max. If you use a buttercream recipe that uses milk, I’d only go about couple of days.
3. Whatever size jar you use needs to be wide-mouthed for best results. Don’t bake more than 1 cup of batter in any jar because the batter likely won’t cook evenly or all the way through. That’s bad. Uncooked batter = food poisoning.
4. Before you bake an entire batch of these, do a test run with a single jar to get a feel for how much batter and baking time you need.
5. I overfilled my jars for this project shoot. The cake was poufing up over the tops of the jars. To fix them, while the cakes were still hot, I used a serrated knife to trim off the excess. As the cakes cooled they shrunk to just the right size. You’ll want about 1/8” – 1/4” of space between the top of the cake and the top of the jar to allow for precious frosting space.
6. Store your finished cakes in a cool, dry place.
7. Because the jars slightly taper down from top to bottom, they were a pain in the butt to wrap with a belly band. Through trial and error, I came up with a template that would conform to the curvature of the jar.
8. Looking for fun, unique, and utterly fabulous cupcake recipes? These are my favorite spots for cupcakey goodness:
   

• BakeSpace
• Cupcake Bakeshop by Chocklit
• Cupcakes Take The Cake
• Couture Cupcakes
• Cupcake Recipes

	1/2 pint jars
	so you can get an idea of the scale
	boiling the lids to sterilize them (or to make lid soup)
	after greasing the jars, add a generous amount of flour
	turn the jar on its side and turn to disperse the flour inside
	floured jar
	jars filled with batter … I should’ve used less batter in each jar
	just-baked cupcake … I trimmed the top of this down before frosting (see notes)
	creme de menthe frosting. delicious!
	circle cutter (for lid decoration)
	decorated lid combining my love of scalloped paper punches and glitter glue
	finished product

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Tags: bake in a jar, cupcake favor, cupcake jar, cupcakes, diy cupcakes, diy favor, favor jar, Favors + Gifts, wedding favor

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