Cupcakes in a Jar

Cupcakes have been stealing the dessert show for quite some time now! I've been wanting to make cupcakes in a jar for awhile and was finally able to use my work holiday party as an excuse to make them. I was inspired by this darling picture on Pinterest: 

My mom was out of town, so I was forced to tackle this challenge alone this week. Let's just say that after this week, I am never participating in a "Make It Happen Monday" event without the other half of the Girls Team! Between baking, frosting, cleaning and photographing solo, I was wiped out after this project!

I found really cute Christmas sprinkles at Michaels, and at the suggestion of my boss, bought candy canes to crush up as a topping too!

I love mason jars. They are so classic and you can literally use them for anything! But, 1/2 paint mason jars were a little more difficult to find than the larger sizes. After searching at Michaels and Target, my mom eventually picked these up at Raley's. After running them through the dishwasher, they were clean and ready to go!

Before I started baking, I made sure to get all of my decorative supplies ready so I had something to keep me busy while my cupcakes were in the oven. I used a giant circular punch to cut out circles from holiday scrapbook paper. These would add a festive touch to the lids with a small piece of tape. Initially I thought I would tie raffia around each jar, but my raffia bows weren't staying just right, so I scratched that idea as the night went on. 

The baking begins! I used a Pillsbury cupcake mix because nobody would be able to tell the difference :) I bought both chocolate and vanilla, but ended up making 24 chocolate cupcakes. If you can read this blog, I don't need to tell you how to make these cupcakes since the simple directions are on the back of the box :) 

I made the vanilla frosting from scratch. It was my first time making homemade frosting and I have to say I will never go back to store bought stuff! This was vanilla cheesecake frosting. It was thick, sweet and delicious, and only took about 10 minutes to make. You can find the recipe I used here.

Once the cupcakes cooled, I cut them in half. Each jar calls for 3 cupcake halves. 

Because my Girls Team partner was MIA this week, and because the frosting process was RIDICULOUSLY difficult, I wasn't able to get a photo of the frosting step. The frosting is added in layers, piped into the jar with an extra large frosting tip. Something I learned about myself this week - I'll stick to spreading frosting with a knife in the future, not piping it. I did not have the patience for this tedious task and the subsequent mess it caused!

Starting at the bottom of the jar, you layer: 1/2 cupcake, frosting, 1/2 cupcake, frosting, 1/2 cupcake, frosting and sprinkles. This was by far the most challenging task I've faced on a Make It Happen Monday. First, piping the frosting down into the jar was really hard. It was tough to get a thick enough layer of frosting set without hitting the sides of the jar and making a mess. Once the frosting was placed, topping it with the next layer of cupcake proved to be problematic. When shoving the cupcake down into the jar, I was essentially squishing down the frosting, which was disappointing (after all of that hard work!!). Each jar took about 10 minutes to complete, yep, 10 minutes. This project, including baking the cupcakes, took about 4.5 hours. 

Here is my completed cupcake in a jar:

View with toppings:

12 completed cupcakes in a jar, ready for the cupcake competition at work!

While I received many compliments from coworkers and family members on my cupcakes in a jar, I can say with certainty that I will never be making these again. They turned out cute, but were SO much work and didn't even come close visually to my Pinterest picture inspiration. I also think in the future I won't be taking on any large, time consuming products like this without my motivational and domestically skilled Girls Team Partner around!!