Showing posts with label jar cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jar cake. Show all posts

Monday, 12 January 2015

Recycling and Revamping



Holidays – done.
….

That was me taking a breather. It was nice though, I slept until noon every day like most people. Right? No?? Oh.

So what to do when you want to bake for your friends’ birthdays but are kinda lazy but obviously don’t want them to know that you’re lazy and instead think that you’re a super considerate and amazing baker and/or friend? The answer is to recycle and repackage old tried and true recipes as a revamp.

Here’s a fun way to package a cake.  Basically take any cake recipe and bake it as a sheet cake. Cut out rounds and layer it in jars with your favorite frosting. To add texture, crumble crunchy bits in between the layers, like cookies, or chocolate bars, or nuts.

Here’s my take on Jar Cakes:
Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting from my previous post. 
·    Because I wanted enough for 5 jars, I cut the cake recipe in half and baked in 9 x 13 inch pan for about 22 minutes. I also cut the buttercream recipe in half.
·    After the cake is cool, cut out rounds that fit into your jars. I used a biscuit cutter.
·    Alternate cake, frosting, and crunchy bits in layers. It’s best to use a pastry bag to pipe the frosting.

BOOM! Revamped!! Friends are impressed.





Here’s my take on revamping the trusty old butter cookie to make Spiral Cookies:
The butter cookie recipe is from this previous post.
·    I cut the recipe in half
·    Roll out to 2-3mm thickness rectangle
·    Spread a thin layer of your favorite jam and roll tightly. Don’t worry if the jam oozes out – just spread it on the outside of the roll.
·    Roll in sprinkles. Wrap in plastic wrap and tighten even further.
·    Refrigerate to harden before slicing and baking at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes or until slightly golden.

BAM! Revamped! Friends are super excited.


Before baking.

After baking.




Ps. The great thing is that people who are sick of your baking will be blown away. They will be thoroughly tricked into thinking you made something new. But you didn’t. And it’s awesome. You’re welcome.

Saturday, 1 October 2011

Jar Cakes


I’ve always wanted to try making jar cakes – cake in jars.  They’re so easy to transport!  Since it was my friend Rica’s birthday, I decided to make them for her.  I coupled a peach cake with a strawberry cream cheese frosting.  Instead of cutting out circles to place in the jars, I used muffin tins!

Check out the verdict at the end of the post!


Peach Cake
Adapted from a post comment.
Makes 12 jar cake layers to fill 3 small jars.

Ingredients
1/4 cup peach puree*
3/4 cup flour
0.5 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
0.5 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/8 cup milk

*peel a peach and puree in a blender.  In a saucepan, simmer over low heat to reduce.

Directions
1.       Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2.       Grease and flour muffin tray.
3.       Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together.
4.       Beat butter and sugar.
5.       Add vanilla, egg, and peach puree.
6.       Mix in milk.
7.       Mix in flour.
8.       Fill muffin tins ¼-1/3 full.
9.       Add any remaining puree on each cake layer.
10.   Bake for 13 minutes.


Peach puree.

Before baking.

After baking.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Filling
Adapted from here.
Makes 1 cup

Ingredients
1/2 packages of cream cheese (4 ounces), room temperature
1 Tbs + 1 tsp butter, room temperature
Heaping 1/3 cup icing sugar
1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup strawberries

Directions
1.       In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, butter, and sugar until creamy.
2.       Mix in vanilla.
3.       Pure strawberries in a blender or food processor.  Mix into cream cheese mixture.
4.       Add more sugar if it is too runny.  Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

Assembly
1.       Place a cake layer in a jar. 
2.       Pipe frosting on top.
3.       Place next cake layer on top of frosting, and repeat until full.
4.       Sprinkle top layer with sprinkles.

Step 1: place cake in jar

Step 2: add frosting

Step 3: repeat

Replace lids with nice fabric or paper

Add ribbon and spoons

Verdict:   These turned out pretty!  I wished that the peach flavor was more pronounced – adding peach flavoring would have helped with this.  Adding cut up fruit as a layer would also have been delicious too!  I decorated with ribbon and added a spoon that made them ready to transport and ready to eat!