Sweetness in a Jar

I've never tried baking in canning jars until now.  Let me just say...FUN!!!

This is a recipe I found online @ http://ourbestbites.com/ and it should have been baked in 4oz, wide mouth, half pint jars, for ease of eating, but I figured anyone would be willing to "dig" for this sweet treat!

Ok...let's get started, shall we?

Basic Ingredients

Mixing Cocoa and Flour

Melted Butter and Semi-Sweet Chocolate

Added to Flour/Cocoa and Mixed

Poured into 8oz Half Pint Jars

Into the Oven They Go

Meanwhile...Pepperment Ganache

To DIE For!!

A Layer of Ganache After the Brownie Cupcake has Baked and Cooled

Frosted with THE BEST Whipped Cream Frosting I Have Ever Made!

Not Too Sweet, as Not to Take Away from the Ganache and Brownie

Now, I did not have the proper piping tip, so it's not as pretty as it could have been, but...who REALLY cares, right?

Ok...so the pic isn't great, but I could hardly contain myself waiting to inhale that bite...

Oh, YEAH!

Labeled and Lidded

for

My Sweet Little Friend, Anya (6yrs old)

Some Velvet Torn Strips, Ribbon, Tinsel, Bells, Sprigs of Greenery and Berries

And

Ready for Gift Giving!

Try it. You'll LOVE it!

Merry Christmas!

Sugar Coma

My son's birthday fell on Friday the 13th...his lucky day or so he says. I wanted to bake him a special cake and was looking through my box of old recipes and found one from mom called, "The Perfect Chocolate Cake." Well, "perfect" caught my attention. I perused the recipe and made sure I had all the ingredients it called for, and let's not forget the cute apron. A baker MUST have a cute apron when making a cake of this magnitude. I proceeded to start this cake on the afternoon of the 13th. We were taking Scooter and his girlfriend, Tracie, out to dinner that evening, so I needed to get it done. Oh, did I mention I was also working through all this? It has been slow, so I thought, good, I won't be bothered much...WRONG...sooooooooo wrong! I was slammed (thank you #13)...I should have known.

Now, when I cook or bake, I do my best to kind of clean up as I go along..really, I do. Not this day. I was on a deadline, had faxes coming in, paperwork to deal with and this huge cake to figure out. Needless to say, powdered sugar was flying all over the kitchen! I had to boil the chocolate mixture and wait for it to cool. Whip the frosting over a bowl of ice (huh?) and bake 3 pans at one time. That made me so nervous.




The cakes had cooled, the frosting done, and the whipped cream filling waiting to be layered between the cakes. The cakes came out the pans just fine and the filling was layered and the cakes didn't slide off(I was holding my breath). The cake was a little lopsided, but not much. I made the mistake of leaving the frosting in the pan sitting in the bowl of ice, so it was not so easy to spread. I let it sit a bit and just whipped it up some more. I did some swirly moves with my knife and also took the back of a spoon to create some peaks. I didn't have anything to garnish it with, so it would have to do. It was 4:45 and I had to hop in the shower and get ready for the kids to arrive and take them out to dinner. It all got done in the nick of time.


After dinner, we came home and cut into that monster and that first bite was so goooood! Very moist, the filling delightful, and the frosting perfect. The chocolate was just right. Not too rich. Add a little vanilla ice cream and let the sugar coma begin!

BTW...that's the birthday boy, Scooter, with his lovely fiance, Tracie!