Cupcake in a Jar

OMG, I think I've died and gone to heaven.  I ran across these amazing looking cupcakes that are packaged in jelly jars over on the Cakies blog.  Genius!  These babies are definitely going to be party favors at a baby shower I'm hosting in July.  So cute...and easy!

First, I started off with a box cake mix.  I wasn't feeling very ambitious today.  I followed the directions and made the batter.  See, easy, right?

Next, I filled the the greased cupcake pan (no liners, although next time I'm using liners so they don't stick) about 2/3s full of batter and baked according to the directions on the box.  By the way, an ice cream scoop is the perfect size for making cupcakes.

While these were baking, I made a quick butter cream frosting recipe that was on the back of the powdered sugar package.  Sorry, package is in the trash, so no recipe!  Are you feeling just how gourmet these guys are?  Yeah, me neither.

Once they were cooked, I allowed them to cool.  I sliced the ones that didn't hang on to the pan for dear life in half and dug the other ones out with a spoon.  Thankfully this project is so forgiving that you can totally screw the cupcakes up and no one will know the difference.

Now the fun part.  Put the bottom half of your cupcake in the jelly jar.  Pipe some icing on top.  On a side note, I don't own a pastry bag set so I just spooned some icing into a zip lock bag and cut off one of the corners.  It worked beautifully and there was zero cleanup.  Bonus!

Now, layer the top part of your cupcake on top of the icing and then pipe some more icing.  A cupcake with double the icing?  Definitely a winner in my book.

The only thing left to do is add sprinkles and package it up!  See.  Sooooo easy!

What's awesome about these is that they have a shelf life of about a week, or they can be frozen if for some really strange reason they're not consumed in that time frame.  Never going to be able to test out that theory in this household!  I delivered cupcakes to a few of our neighbors today and it was absolutely effortless.  No plates to return or flimsy paper plates with knocked over cupcakes.  I'm telling you, genius!

Enjoy!