Have fun with food!

One day while I was roaming around in blog-land, I stumbled across the cutest party favors I've ever seen - cupcakes in a jar! Since coming across this piece of genius, I continued to look for different recipes and ideas of how to pull this off. Since my daughter chose Team Umizoomi for her party theme, there really wasn't a specific color scheme or outline I had to stick to. I decided to go with some colors she already chose and make confetti cupcakes (my standard vanilla cupcake recipe with rainbow sprinkles mixed in) with pink buttercream icing.

Cupcakes in a Jar 

• Confetti Cupcakes
• Buttercream Icing
• 1/2 pint Mason jars
• Papers, ribbon or decor of choice.

Confetti Cupcakes (makes 2 dozen)

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• sprinkles

In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla (when mixing, you always want to start with flour, and end with flour -- a very wise woman told me this). With each addition, beat until the ingredients are mixed but do not overbeat. Make sure to scrape down the batter in the bowl so the ingredients are well blended. Stir in the sprinkles -- as many or as little as you like.

Pour batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Doesn't have to be perfect

 Buttercream Icing (for 2 dozen cupcakes)

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 6-8 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. Beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.

Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of a good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. Add food coloring of choice and mix until evenly distributed.

Assembly (1 1/2 cupcakes & 3 rows of icing per jar)

Assembly step 1

Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, cut them in half horizontally.
In the Mason jar, put a bottom piece of the cupcake in (carefully), and add the icing using a piping bag or a spoon. It doesn't have to be pretty, this layer gets squished anyway.
Add another piece of cupcake (either top or bottom is fine), and continue with more icing.

Place the top piece of cupcake on and add the icing in a beautiful circular pattern. I also topped off with some sprinkles for some extra color.

Place the lids on the jars and hand out as favors at your next party.

*On the lids, you can punch out some pretty paper and add a saying or quote, or tie it off with some ribbon -- whatever you like. Since we had a Umizoomi party, I put sayings from the show & show inspired Thank You's on my papers. These would be great for Halloween - orange and black would look great. And yes, you'll have to eat them with a spoon.