Christmas Jars

Christmas time mistletoe and wine means it is jar time!
(And now you've got that song stuck in your head, right?!)

I love jars! I grab them whenever I find cute and interesting ones to use in my pantry.
But now that it's Christmas, it's time to find cute and interesting things to fill the jars with.

If you want to bake treats for jars, there are plenty of things that you can make.
But sometimes you're all baked out, and just need something simpler... so let the recipient do the baking!

This is a chocolate-cake-in-a-jar.
It's the dry ingredients of this recipe, but I've used brown sugar instead of white sugar for visual effect.
Layer it in a 1 litre jar with the cocoa powder at the bottom, followed by half the sugar, then half the flour with the salt and rising agents**. Repeat with another layer of sugar, then flour.
 (**Don't forget the baking powder and baking soda!).
 This jar is actually a little smaller than 1 litre, and the ingredients fit snugly.  So if you have extra space beneath the lid, pack in some chocolate chips or chopped nuts (or both) and add that to your ingredients card.

 (

The ingredients card reads:

Chocolate Cake

Preheat the oven to 180'C

Grease and line 2 x 18cm round cake pans

 or  line 2x 12-hole muffin pans with cupcake cases

Ingredients:

Cake-in-a-jar contents

and

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup oil

1 cup buttermilk or sour cream 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup hot black coffee or boiling water

Sift the jar contents into a mixing bowl;

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well with a whisk.

Pour into your prepared tins.

Bake at 180'C until a skewer inserted comes out

 with a few moist crumbs attached –

approx 30 minutes if you've used cake pans,

20 minutes if you've made cupcakes

  

Remove from the oven.

Allow to cool before removing from the cake pans.

Another idea that I love is this one (courtesy of Pinterest) -  a jar full of "reindeer noses"!

Use Cadbury Whispers or Woolworths Chuckles mixed in with a few red jawbreakers. So cute!

However, if you do want to bake for your jars, visit the Index of Recipes and Tutorials have a look under the Brownies, Bars and Squares; or the Cookies recipes.  There are plenty of ideas there.


Happy jar-filling!

xxM