Cake-In-A-Jar....What Else?

Hi my name is Christy, and I'm a jar-a-holic.

I saw this post awhile back about red velvet cake....in a jar...from a website called Cakies. I need blood pressure medicine when blog hopping, my heart can't take it anymore.
My Mom informed me that she was going to be making a carrot cake for a friend at work. When my Mom tells me what 'she's doing,' this means-me. That whole "I gave birth to you..." thing seems to be a life-time sentence. I like to bake, so it works out OK. Everything except for the dishes. Eww.
I knew I'd use my favorite recipe for carrot cake (the request), but the problem is I've made it a lot....and I just didn't want to ice another cake with frosting and ship it on it's way, so I decided to give the 'cake in a jar' plan a whirl. (I'd probably cut the pineapples in half next time, for some reason they were overwhelming this go 'round.)
You can bake the cake directly in the jar, but I decided to follow the instructions on the blog on cakies, plus, it allowed me to spend a little more time with my cupcake pans, and we like spending time together.
I baked my cupcakes, and sliced them in half.

I slipped the bottom half in the jar (I bought the jars on sale for $1 each at Hobby Lobby. I found some 8 oz mason jars (which cakies used on the site), but I'm (self) banned from buying mason jars, but I know how to get around that...).
After I put the cupcake top down in the base of the jar, I piped a swirl of icing on top of that layer, and then I placed the bottom half of the cupcake on the icing (like a layered cake). It didn't completely fill out the layer, but I suspected this might be the case. I wasn't in need of 24 cupcakes for this group, so I took the extra cupcakes (that's an antonym if I ever heard it=extra/cupcakes-unheard of!) and cut them into smaller pieces to squeeze down with this second layer (1 'extra' cupcake filled in the spaces of about 5 of the jars).

After that, I piped another layer of icing. The good thing is it can be completely messy b/c you are just going to close the lid, and the jar does the beautification. I like a project that allows messy icing work.

Normally, when I make the cupcakes, I half the recipe for icing, but this time I did the full thing because I was doubling the amount I normally use with the layered cupcakes. Here they are, almost ready. I love these jars. I have big plans for these jars, which means I need to ask for them back. Tacky? That's OK. Like I said, I have plans...and a budget.

I could have been finished here, but I had a dream....
Next came the lid, some fun ribbon, and some forks I ordered from Amazon (a company called Birchwood-info also given on Cakies Blog). I looked all over for these guys for my Cowgirl Rodeo shower, and could not find them at a reasonable rate, but Amazon was pretty reasonable. I got 100 for 15 dollars. I'll use them again....or frame them....or sleep with them under my pillow where all the other treasures are I don't want to use b/c I like them too much.

Bye Bye Cake-Calories-in-a-Jar

Now I'm off to comment on Cakies' blog and tell her what she has done to me, for better or worse. I love cake in a jar. It's two of my favorite things (cakes and jars), married into a perfect union.