Mason Jar Desserts – The Perfectly Easy Dish

Most people are entertaining in some way during the summer months. Friends come over for pool parties, birthday parties, Independence Day, Labor Day, and just to enjoy your company. Activities tend to be outside in the warmer weather. The food tends to be quick to prepare and easy to eat. Enter mason jar desserts.

On the world wide web you will find dozens of recipes for mason jar desserts. Tinyme has links to a few good looking ones. Here is a rainbow one like my ChicChica dessert on Just Easy Recipes. I can’t wait to actually try one of these recipes.

Betty Crocker has a similar recipe for a rainbow cake. After you have prepared your cakes you can then cut the circle layers out. Just use a round cutter slightly smaller than the mason jar. Perhaps a cookie cutter or a cup will work.

Rainbow Layer Cake by Betty Crocker

Ingredients

Cake

2 boxes Betty Crocker Super Moist vanilla cake mix
2 cups water
1 cup vegetable oil
6 eggs
2 packages Betty Crocker classic gel food colors

Buttercream Frosting

1 cup shortening

1 cup butter, softened

1 bag (2lb) powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 3 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray.

2. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Divide batter evenly among 6 small bowls, about 1 1/3 cups each.

3. Using food colors, tint batter in 1 bowl blue, 1 bowl red, 1 bowl green, 1 bowl yellow, 1 bowl orange (using red and yellow) and 1 bowl purple (using blue and red).

4. Refrigerate 3 colors of batter until ready to bake. Pour remaining 3 colors of batter into cake pans.

5. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center and begins to pull away from side of pan. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooling racks; cool completely.

6. Wash cake pans. Bake and cool remaining 3 cake layers as directed.

7. In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer on medium speed until light yellow. On low speed, gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla. Add milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until frosting is smooth. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy.

8. Trim rounded tops off cakes to level, if needed. On serving plate, place purple cake layer. Spread with frosting to within 1/4 inch of edge. Repeat with blue, green, yellow, orange and red cake layers. Spread light coat of frosting on top and side of cake to seal in crumbs, then frost with remaining frosting.

Expert Tips
-Cake batter is stable enough to wait in the fridge till the first three layers are baked. Be sure to rinse the pans in cool water and dry them well before scraping the rest of the batters into the pans. If you only have two 8-inch pans, it’s okay to bake the layers in three batches.

-Use a kitchen scale to weigh out the batter for each layer, so they bake up evenly.

-Make this a party cake and switch up the colored layers as requested by the birthday girl or boy.

-For guaranteed easy unmolding, line each pan with baking parchment. Set one of the pans on the paper and trace a circle around the base with the tip of a sharp paring knife to create a round that fits inside the pan; repeat to make enough for all the layers.

-Using half shortening and half butter for the buttercream frosting ensures that it will stay firm enough at room temperature. Make it ahead and chill it for a while to firm it up before assembling the layers.

-For a deeper red color, add a teaspoon or two of unsweetened baking cocoa to the red batter

-If you only have two 8-inch cake pans, bake the cakes in three batches instead.

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Penguins and Cocoa

The holidays are upon us, and we are usually so busy that we don’t have time to enjoy them. After baking and decorating these cute cookies I want you to sit down by the fireplace, and enjoy your hard work with a nice cup of hot cocoa. Stop and take in the season. Look at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree that you worked so hard on decorating. Love it! Enjoy it!

I found a pretty easy recipe to make these penguin cookies. Bonus, you can make snowmen the same way! Use two different size round cookie cutters. Size will depend on how big or small you want your cookies to be. After baking decorate with royal icing. The cookies and cocoa shown here are What Next – Wintertime Cocoa & Cookies.

Sweetopia has a great recipe for The Perfect Peanut Butter Cut Out Cookie. If you don’t want to make peanut butter cookies you can do any type. Her article has great tips on how to keep the shape of the cookie. Definitely go take a look for step by step instructions.

Recipe after the break!

Great Homemade Gift Ideas

Do you want to give a gift that shows care and thoughtfulness? Baking is one way to a person’s heart and stomach! With the help of Dust Bunny, Vespertine, 22769, and Tentacio we can make some pretty good looking personalized gifts! Here are a few ideas:

1. Buy cute mugs and fill with Hot Chocolate, Marshmallows, and Candy Canes.
2. Peppermint themed gift basket. Fill with Popcorn, Loose Candies, Lollipops, Kisses, and Cookies. All peppermint flavored.
3. Macarons and Flowers for the one you really love.
4. Assortment of homemade cookies.

Let’s share recipes! The peppermint chocolate cookies look delicious. This recipe is from Cooking Classy. Please go to her site to read more about these cookies and more.

Keep reading for the recipe and more.

S’mores for me!

I missed a month or two due to being busy with life. We have all been there. I have seen some great looking food that I wanted to blog, and I could still. Today we are making s’mores because What Next has their s’mores set on sale for half off. And the fact that I could not get into The Arcade to blog some Halloween delights.

Back to the topic, S’mores. Where does the word come from? It is just what you think. S’mores is a contraction of the phrase “some more.” I have put together a little s’mores table with graham crackers, milk chocolate, and marshmallows. These are some of the easiest and most fun treats to make.

The cooler weather is perfect for bon fires and s’mores. Here is how we made ours.  Place some of the chocolate bar pieces onto a graham cracker and set to the side. Then put a marshmallow on the end of a stick and hold that over the fire. Cook it as light or dark as you like. I prefer mine burnt.  Top with another graham cracker and enjoy!

read more for credits and slurls

Making a Kawaii Bear Burger

MishMish recently created this adorable hamburger that has a cute bear face. I looked into how we could create our own. My first stop was Pinterest. Just look at all of the cuteness overload on that page when searching bear burgers! As you can see, a few people make the ears with a meat such as sausage or pepperoni and a little bit of cheese.

I found a recipe that shows you how to make your own buns with ears. Look at this blog post on Edible Bears. They show us how to make your own bear buns. There are more than just cute bear buns on that blog. If you would rather make your hamburger with store bought buns then watch this video on youtube by Ochikeron. She makes a Rilakkuma Avocado Cheeseburger that might be to darling to eat. Her channel is loaded with bento and kawaii dishes that she prepares.

MishMish – The Cute Bear Burger
Cae :: Flamingo :: Collection
Cae :: Audrey :: Ring
Blueberry – Mimi – Top Tied Dress – Maitreya *Group Gift
TRUTH / Gwen *Group Gift
Glam Affair – Willow – Catwa Mesh Head Applier – America
an lar [poses] The Laura Series

Mandarin Orange Cake (with a little help from baby)

Look at this little baby boy helping me to bake a cake. So adorable! I am not usually one that plays the Black Bantam gachas for babies, but this time I did. We are going to be making a Mandarin Orange Cake today. If I can stop him from eating all of the oranges.

Most of the recipes that I found were made using a box of cake mix. Since Black Bantam went through the trouble to make the flour, we are going to make it from scratch. I am going to share this recipe from Just a Pinch Mandarin Orange Cake from Scratch

Ingredients

2 1/2 c flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 c butter, room temperature
2 1/2 c sugar, divided
4 eggs
11oz can mandarin oranges, undrained

Frosting

2 c whipping cream
1 box 3.4 oz instant vanilla pudding
1 can crushed pineapple, undrained 8 oz.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Grease and Flour two 8 inch cake pans.
In a small bowl, whisk flour and baking powder. Set aside.
Cream Butter and 2 cups Sugar. Add Eggs one at a time until all combined.
Add entire can of Mandarin Oranges. Beat into batter, slightly crushing up oranges.
Slowly add flour mixture until well mixed.
Divide batter between the 2 cake pans. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool on wire racks.

Make Frosting while cake is baking:

Whip cream with remaining 1/2 cup of Sugar and Pudding Mix until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use. Spread on cooled cakes. Enjoy!

This cake was super easy to make. I simply placed oranges on top of the Tres Blah Bon Appetit Cake for decoration.

[Black Bantam] Let’s Make Mandarin Cake Set Extras @ Epiphany
[Black Bantam] Baby Boy Bowl Decor 02 @ Epiphany

I wanted to share this recipe that also had a tiny helper in making their cake. https://julieblanner.com/mandarin-orange-cake/

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Can’t you just smell the warm chocolate chip cookies coming right out of the oven? Cookies are always a special treat. It does not matter if it is wintertime or summertime.  They are great with a cup of hot cocoa or to take for a snack on a picnic.

To make chocolate chip cookies Ultimate you will want to make an ice cream sandwich with them. Just add a scoop of ice cream in between two cookies. I think most any flavor ice cream would do just fine. Below is a recipe for a batch of Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies that comes from Gold Medal Flour’s website. I added that including nuts in your recipe is optional.  Dust Bunny’s Homemade Summer Treats

Gold Medal Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1egg
• 2 1/4 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

DIRECTIONS

• Heat oven to 375ºF.

• Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

• Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.