mason jar cakes

April 18,2012

My baby turned 15 years old last month........She's my only one still in the nest, and I'm blessed, she's such a sweetheart.

She had a few friends come over and spend the night and we prepared hot wings and loaded potato salad for them.  After getting a full stomach, i took them to do what teenage girls love to do most...............SHOPPING.  They had a good time and found a few good bargains.

I wanted to share with you her birthday cakes............Yes......you read it correctly.......Cakes......more than one.  Mini cakes in a mason jar.  I have seen these all over the internet and have wanted to try it for some time.

We chose German Chocolate ......you know.....a girls favorite flavor.....

One box should fill 10-12 half pint jars.  I only had 7 clean and available so i poured the rest of the batter in muffin tins to finish up the batch.

Just mix the cake mix according to package directions and grease and flour jars.  I just sprayed mine with an oil spray and didn't flour mine and they came out fine. 

 Fill the jars half full with the batter, wipe clean any drippings from the sides of your jars.  Place a pan of hot water on lowest rack of your oven, and put jars on a flat pan and bake them for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Oven temp according to cake mix at 350 degrees.

When you take them out of the oven they may look lop-sided, but don't worry they tend to settle when cooled. But if it doesn't settle even, your frosting will cover it up.

I used a cool whip butter cream frosting recipe that's light and creamy, and to die for, it's one of my favorite frosting.

Here's the frosting recipe i used:

2 sticks of butter
1lb powdered sugar
1tsp vanilla
1 sm tub cool whip

cream butter add sugar & vanilla, fold in cool whip. Refrigerate until ready to spread on cakes.

This recipe makes alot, probably enough to frost a whole cake.  Since you are just topping these you can cut this in half or store the remaining in the fridge and use it in a few days on something else.

The jar lids fit on mine perfect without touching the frosting, so you can make these ahead of time and keep them in fridge until ready to eat.  They were good chilled on a hot day.

My daughter and her friends ejoyed there little personal cakes and i enjoyed adding a lil something special to her birthday dinner.

Give it a try.................


I'm linking up to my simple country living for Heidi's Country Homemaker Hop
Please join me to see what other like minded women are doing across the country.


                                 Live simple..............Sheryl

Growing babies.......

April 17, 2012

Wow!!! how time is just flying by, i can't believe we are in the middle of April already, and it has been over a month since i have been on here to blog and catch up with all the homesteading happenings from my fellow bloggers.  I miss reading of all of your happenings and inspirations, but sometimes LIFE just demands things from us, and I choose to blog when i have the time and to make sure the family needs are taken care of.

The babies are growing fast:

Rosie, Jolie & Pepe

Jessie 13 months old (grandbaby)

Oreo & Maggie

merrybelle & Jezebel

We had another calf born yesterday morning to our black cross bred cow we raised and bottle fed.  We assumed she was pregnant and due to deliver around the same time as Merry Belle, back in February, but for some reason she fell behind.  Her traits are not that desirable, so needless to say, she will be the first to be culled from the heard.  We are pretty sure she gave us yet another heifer to add to our growing heard.  

Peanut & first baby calf

It has been fun watching these babies grow.  We feel blessed to be on this journey of becoming self-sufficient and striving to grow as much of our own food as we can.  It's not something we plan on accomplishing overnight, but we keep striving to make changes to assure our diet is as healthy as possible.

The past few weeks we have been working on getting the garden planted, and things are off to a good start, pictures and more blogging on that later.  I just wanted to give you a quick peek at the growing babies.  Hope you are having a wonderful spring on your homestead.

                                  Live simple...................Sheryl