Chocolate Candy Cane Crazy Cake for Holiday Gift Jars

Chocolate Candy Cane Crazy Cake

The holidays are upon us and it’s time to share something sweet with those we love.  Consumable gifts that fill the bellies of those I love is my favorite gift.  I’ve given up on baking things I can’t have and in recent years I’ve moved to giving jars of goodies, so that friends and family can have an easy treat to make with kids.  This year with the launch of this blog I have chosen to do Crazy Cake in a Jar, inspired by several blogs I’ve seen on the web.  Most of them are a full 9 x 13 pan size and fill up an whole quart jar.  I’ve cut mine in half for a reasonable size cupcake batch or a single round to leave room in the jar for something sweet to put on top.  I think this could become a new tradition with flavors changing each year.  As always I’m commited to using normal ingredients found in most kitchens, but for the holidays we need a fun flavor like candy canes.

While this recipe is sized for 12 cupcakes you can easily make it as a cake.  If you don’t have a favorite way to make your cake pop out, try this Miracle Pan Release I found on Pintrest two weeks ago: http://veronicascornucopia.com/2011/09/14/miracle-pan-release/  The cake came right out of the pan, something that has never happened to me before and is probably the reason why I love cupakes with their cute little papers so much…I may have to rethink this now that I can finally get cake to come out of the pan without all the mess from greasing and flouring pans.  My cake decorating teacher over at http://cakedecoratingbysonia.blogspot.com/ recommended Wilton’s version but there was some ingredient that made it unsafe for us and it seemed so expensive for my infrequent use.  With this recipe I’ve used all our normal safe ingredients and I’ll have this on the shelf for a long time for no extra expense.

Now onto the goodie jars. First we love Spangler’s candy canes!  We bought lots of boxes on sale at the local Bartell drugs.  I just about cried when I read their ingredient list which actually calls out that they are made in a facility free of contamination and did I mention they were a dollar cheaper than their competitor?  This was one time when we didn’t pay extra for safety, yeah!  We peeled them out of their packaging and double Ziploc bagged them, put them between layers of a kitchen towel and let DD go at them with the meat tenderizer.  And so she now is part of my annual tradition of getting all the holiday stress out by crushing candy canes.  Yes she whacked herself in the head, and from then on, she instructed me to always use “two hands momma”.

I made quite a few batches buying flour and sugar in 10 pound quantities, here is the scoop on just one jar. I have listed the ingredients as I put in the jar instead of in the usual order and left the “wet” ingredients to the end for the lucky baker to add at when they are ready for some Chocolate Candy Cane Crazy Cake. 

I also made up the usual little round labels and punched them with my trusty 2 1/2: circle punch that fits the top of the mason jars.  If you would like this Word document let me know.

Chocolate Candy Cane Crazy Cake Jars