Recipe: Dessert in a Jar

My sister throws the BEST parties for her kids. This weekend was her son’s 5th birthday and the theme was fort building. The kids spent the afternoon in the fort my brother-in-law built in the their backyard (complete with a thatched straw roof). My sister also planned on surprising the birthday boy with this amazing layered rainbow cake. I somehow missed that it was a surprise and spilled the beans. As punishment, I – the blabbermouth – had to make them. I was a little nervous as I mixed the radioactive-looking batter, but luckily the kids loved them almost as much as the adults did!

Layered Batter

Now I’m eager to make more desserts in the jars…

Recipe:

Adapted from www.babble.com 

• 1 box white cake mix made according to package instructions
• Neon food coloring in pink, yellow/green, turquoise, and purple
• 10 8-oz canning jars (if you find smaller or larger adjust layers of batter accordingly)
• 1 can vanilla frosting
• Rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly wash and dry the inside of each canning jar (we ran them through the dishwasher). Spray the inside of each jar thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Scoop a heaping 1/2 cup of cake batter into four small bowls. Tint each bowl of cake batter with the food coloring until very vibrant.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the purple batter into the bottom of each jar.  Spoon about 2 tablespoons of turquoise batter, then green/yellow, and pink.  Place the jars in a shallow baking dish, add 1/4″ of water in the baking dish. Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Remove jars. Add a hefty dollop of frosting to the top. Sprinkle & serve. You can also cover with a lid and store or pop into the mail & surprise someone special!

*We doubled the recipe to make 20 jars.

UPDATE: These do NOT turn out well if you mix different types of batters. Use one batter and food coloring to vary color. Varying the batter will not allow for the pretty pretty layers.