What’s extra great is that there is no flour nor butter in them, just egg whites for binding, so they are practically health food. (OK technically it would be more accurate to say they are practically candy, since the bulk is made up of sugar and chocolate.)

Now I know it’s been almost 2 weeks since Christmas, but do you still have some janky old candy canes lying around? Put them into a plastic bag and hit them with a hammer to make scraps. Sprinkle them on half the cookies before baking, so the chocolate-peppermint lovers in your life can have something nice, too. If you sprinkle them on after baking… well, sadly, they will just slide off. I know this from experience.

Get the recipe from Recipe Girl here.

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The trick with these is to stir them super vigorously so the sugar starts to crystallize and help the spices cling to the nuts. Once they start to get sandy and sugary, you’ll know they are ready to go. I remember learning learning to make these in pastry school and not seeing them get sandy, despite what I thought were my best efforts at stirring them. The instructor came by and sneered, “you call that VIGOROUS? You need to stir VIGOROUSLY!” So I always think of that and smile while I’m stirring them. Vigorously.

And since you get a mini arm workout, you can justify eating a few extra nuts.

You can easily double or triple this recipe or play with the spices to your liking. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, here’s a guide to help you get to soft ball stage without one.

Recipe: Sweet & Spicy Holiday Nuts
makes 1 1/2 cups nuts

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• Large pinch of cayenne pepper
• Large pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted shelled nuts of your choice

METHOD:

• Combine sugar and water in a saucepan on the stove over medium high heat. Meanwhile, combine spices and salt in a bowl.
• Insert a candy thermometer into the sugar and when it reaches 238 degrees (soft ball stage) turn off the heat and add the spices and the nuts.
• Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon for 2-3 minutes, until the nuts start to get a sandy texture.
• Pour nuts out onto a sheet of parchment paper or foil to cool. When they are cool enough to handle, gently break the clumps up with your hands.
• You can store them for up to a week in a sealed plastic bag or tightly closed container.

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You may or may not know that I am part Norwegian. Now if you’re not Scandinavian, you might not realize what a big deal it is for a Norwegian to make and enjoy something Finnish. My grandmother was one of the sweetest, warmest, kindest women in the world, but as a proud Norwegian, she really had it in for the Finns (even worse than the Danes or the Swedes.) So it speaks volumes that this is a cherished family recipe despite its, er, unlikely origins.

Sometimes people eat this and think it’s the same thing as a Dutch baby, but in fact, they are a little bit different, and I feel that the Finnish pancake is superior. Probably because it has more butter in it. A typical Dutch baby recipe asks that you mix a lesser amount of melted butter into the batter, while the Finnish pancake requires that you melt a bunch of butter in the cooking pan then add the batter on top, creating an end result that’s more butter-coated, with small rivulets and channels of butter along the entire surface. And yet, the Dutch baby gets all the love. In fact, Finnish pancakes don’t even have a Wikipedia page! Oh, the injustice. (Update: commenter Nicole points out they do have a Wikipedia page, under Pannukakku, but it’s admittedly pretty lame.)

According to my grandmother’s recipe, you are meant to serve this with fresh berries, and whipped cream. I also like maple syrup on the side. If I’m feeling energetic, I’ll make a simple raspberry red wine sauce (recipe below.) You can whip up some cream to go with it–if I have creme fraiche on hand, I add a few spoonfuls to give the cream a slight tang. But hey, it’s Christmas morning, and you’re probably tired from playing Santa, so a can of squirt whipped cream and a handful of mixed berries will work just as well! It’s all about the pancake, anyway.

Ideally you would make this in a cast-iron pan, but any large metal oven-proof frying pan will work. It doesn’t need to be non-stick, because of all the butter. If you don’t have either of those, you can make it in a casserole-type dish, but it won’t puff up quite as much. It will still be delicious, though.

Recipe: Finnish Pancake
serves 6

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 tablespoons butter (original recipe calls for twice that much, but I think 4 tablespoons is the right amount. If you really and truly love butter, like even more than I do, which hardly seems possible, you could go up to 6 tablespoons)
• 5 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup flour

• Put butter into a heavy, oven-proof skillet and place into the oven. Turn oven to 400 degrees F.
• Beat eggs and sugar with a hand mixer until foamy.
• Add milk and flour and beat until smooth and frothy.
• Pour batter into melted butter in heated pan. Cook for about 25 minutes, until pancake pulls away from sides, rises, and browns on top.
• Serve warm with fruit and whipped cream.

Easy Raspberry Red Wine Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 small baskets fresh raspberries
• 1 cup red wine
• 3/4 cup sugar (more or less to taste)

METHOD:

• Before preparing the pancake, put all sauce ingredients in a small saucepan on the stove.
• Bring to a boil then turn down to a simmer. Simmer 30-40 minutes, while you prepare and bake the pancake.
• Just before taking the pancake out, remove from heat and put into a pitcher or bowl. Serve warm.

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I am a fanatic about everything being edible, which means no supporting sticks or skewers allowed–and I insist that everything apart from the gingerbread and the royal icing is made out of store-bought candy. Could I make an amazing, edible gingerbread creation with marzipan or fondant? Absolutely. But to me, that’s kind of cheating, because I might as well just make it out of clay at that point. So my rules are pretty strict and this year was no exception, although we did use some edible silver spray to modernize some areas of the landscape.

MJ and Marghi worked the marshmallow Santa into his sweet (literally) UFO, made of gingerbread circles with a melted jolly rancher windshield, with a few gumdrops for structure and a Nerds rope for decoration.

Marghi & Mitra worked with me on the George Jetson-inspired tower houses, with stacks of gingerbread sprayed silver and lined up atop jujubes, jolly ranchers, lifesavers, gumballs, and Reese’s white chocolate peanut butter cups.

Miscellaneous candy antennae and other skyward protrusions, made with Ice Cubes gum, mini marshmallows, jujubes, gumdrops, gummy trees, and red licorice provide the final adornment for the stilted futuristic dwellings.

Once again Radha did much of the fine detail work and painstakingly laid out the lunar surface, using gray and black M&Ms, Sno-Caps, Hershey’s Oreo discs, cracked silver gumballs, blue and white York peppermint drops, crushed white lifesavers, mini marshmallows. Marghi and I worked out the big gingerbread slab for the backdrop, covered in black icing and studded with snowflake and pearl candy stars–and a highly inaccurate earth, hewn from blue sour belts and carved green gummies.

New guy Alex, who conveniently knows his way around a real-life construction site, was key in fence construction and final placement of the black night sky (and believe me when I say, you need someone calm and collected to manhandle a large, delicate panel of frosted, candy-laden gingerbread to get it vertical.) The reindeer were sprayed silver and penned in a gingerbread fence – and are eating silvery nuts and bolts.

Some details in case you’re wondering…

• I got the majority of the candy at Walgreen’s, but I found a few specialty items at a big party store, like the gray and black single color packs of M&Ms and the silver gumballs.
• The gingerbread project is constructed on two cutting boards taped together with packing tape and covered in aluminum foil.
• The recipe I use for gingerbread is this one – it smells great, it’s sturdy and long-lasting, and it’s easy to work with.
• The icing is key for this, because it acts as the glue. You can make royal icing with egg whites and powdered sugar, beat to fluffy. I don’t use a recipe, I just put a few egg whites and a lot of powdered sugar together and keep adding more of one or the other until it’s viscous enough to use as glue. If you leave it open to the air, it will harden, so you can put it in a ziploc bag and cut a hole in the corner and use that as your “glue gun.” For fine detail, use a smaller bag and cut a smaller hole. If you want to color the icing, use paste food coloring to get rich colors – which is how we got the icing on the sky backdrop black.
• Now that the party’s over, I’m going to let my nieces and nephew eat it. They usually just pick the candy off and leave the gingerbread for the compost pile!

Here are some other gingerbread projects I think are particularly inspired!

• Gingerbread AT-AT by Blackmarket Bakery
• Super-detailed version of the Weasley house, The Burrows, from Harry Potter
• Scout Regalia’s gingerbread geodesic dome (you can buy a kit for $25 to make your own)
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water - creator unknown

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My Dad and I have birthdays a week apart, and often do things together to celebrate. When I turned 6 and he turned 40, I asked my parents if we could eat at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. (We lived in New York at that time.) I guess at that point my parents realized they had a strangely fancy food-obsessed kid on their hands. I don’t remember much about the food, but I do recall going to the bathroom with my sister, who was 10, and being thoroughly confused by the presence of a restroom attendant. When I turned 16 and he 50, we donned our tuxes and prom dresses and got the best seat at Julius’ Castle, a venerated old dining institution with views of San Francisco Bay. Of course neither of those places is still in business, sadly, but we still try to do food-related birthdays together.

This year I was a little surprised when he told me that for his birthday, he wanted to have a potsticker competition. (OK, not that surprised, considering our past food competitions.) Maybe at this time you’re thinking “what does an old white guy know about making potstickers?” But in fact, as a retired professor, my dear old Dad has had the pleasure of working with scores of visiting Chinese postdoctoral students–and while he edited their neuroscience papers, they shared their dumpling-making secrets. So he has been making excellent potstickers for a couple of decades, at least, and they are better than the ones you get in most restaurants. It also doesn’t hurt that he has traveled to China dozens of times to do lots of taste-testing.

Back to the fierce competition: there were 4 competitors, me, my Dad, and two of his friends. There were also several extremely partisan judges to taste-test the total of seven varieties that were on offer. I am happy to say that I totally kicked a$$ by winning with my Southeast Asian-inspired potstickers. The non-traditional filling includes mint, cilantro, chopped cashews, and lime, along with the more standard potsticker filling items like ground pork and cabbage. 

I kind of cheated though, because I had two entries. Although it came in 4th place, I actually preferred my other entrant, a duck a l’orange potsticker, which involved duck confit and orange zest. So I’ve decided to share both recipes with you.

If I’m making 2 kinds, I like to fold them differently so it’s easy to tell which is which. I’ve included directions for both square and round wrappers, so if you’re making multiple varieties, you might want to make one type with square wrappers and one type with circular wrappers.

It’s more fun (read: easier) if more people help out, like an assembly line.

A caveat: we don’t make our own dough, which some people might think is lame. (I’m happy to see that the inimitable Jaden Hair agrees it’s not really worth it. However, the unparalleled Andrea Nguyen would probably disagree.) Baby steps, people. It took us 25 years to get this good at the other aspects of potstickery. We’ve got big plans to attempt a reverse engineering of  Shanghai’s finest Yang’s crispy dumplings, dough included, in the near future. I favor Japanese gyoza skins for my potstickers, because they are a little bit thinner. You can buy Japanese gyoza wrappers or Chinese potsticker skins in the refrigerated section of an Asian market.

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup finely chopped mint leaves
• 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro leaves
• 3-4 cloves finely chopped garlic
• 2 Tblsp grated ginger
• 1/3 head chopped cabbage, lightly sauteed in a teaspoon of sesame oil and dried on paper towels
• 1/2 cup grated carrot
• 1/3 cup finely chopped cashews
• 2 Tblsp soy sauce
• 1 Tblsp sesame oil
• zest of 1 lime
• sambal oelek or sriracha to taste
• 1-2 packages gyoza or potsticker wrappers
• vegetable oil for cooking

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I don’t understand why, but if you make rice krispy treats with Fruity Pebbles cereal instead of Rice Krispies, people will act like you are a genius. Kids, adults, whatever- it amazes them that you thought of this. And I think they taste quite a bit more exciting than run-of-the-mill krispy treats!

Here’s how you make them: Make the original, standard Rice Krispy treats recipe, but use Fruity Pebbles instead. That’s it. I stacked these wedding cake-style with parchment rounds in between to make them seem fancy. You can use Cocoa Pebbles if you prefer, or even a mix of Cocoa Pebbles and Rice Krispies, but they won’t have quite the visual wow factor that only a sugary cereal’s neon food dyes can offer!

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I always make mashed potatoes a little differently, so I’m not here to share a specific recipe – but rather a group of the most important scientific potato facts and chef tips gleaned from years of experimentation and experience. Armed with this knowledge, you will never need a recipe to make fabulous mashed potatoes under any circumstances.

Boiling the potatoes

My favorite food science nerd Harold McGee has some complicated reason why you should put potatoes in cold water and then bring them to a boil, instead of putting them directly into boiling water – it’s something about the heat forming a starch crust on the potatoes. Whatever the reason is, you should do what he’s says because he’s always right. Don’t serve people crusty potatoes. Start with cold water and bring them to a boil. After about 15 minutes, test with a sharp knife to see if it enters the potato very easily. If not, cook longer and keep testing.

Science says: add fat first, liquid second

Some recipes tell you to add butter and milk all at the same time, but that is also a big mistake. A while back I read an article from America’s Test Kitchen that really opened my eyes on this topic. They noted that the starchy structure of the potatoes absorb molecules in a specific way. If you add the milk first and then the butter, the potato molecules get filled up with milk molecules and the butter just floats around on the outside – giving you grainy mashed potatoes. However, if you add the butter first, the fat molecules get all up in the potatoes first, making them creamy and buttery. Then you add the milk to thin and smooth the mixture.

How do restaurants get them so rich and creamy?

You know those potatoe purees you get in a super fancy restaurant, that are so rich, velvety, and smooth they barely taste like potatoes at all? At the risk of being banned from the secret club of former chefs, I am going to reveal a somewhat shocking secret. Those may be in the ballpark of being literally half butter. Yes, I mean 2 parts potatoes to 1 part butter. They’re also usually put through a potato ricer. So if you’re interested in getting more of a potato puree texture, add copious amounts of butter (and some heavy cream and lots of salt while you’re at it) and keep the cardiologist on speed dial.

The tools

If you are anti-lump, your best bet is a potato ricer. You can use a standard masher but you will have to work very hard to get no lumps. If you want fewer lumps, use one that looks like a grid (like this) not one that looks like squiggly lines (this) – the squiggly one is almost impossible to use for super smooth mashed potatoes.

You can use a stand mixer or handheld mixer, but you should be careful because you can get glue-y mashed potatoes which are so bad, they are actually worse than no mashed potatoes at all. If you’re using a stand mixer, start with the flat blade, then switch to the whisk attachment to get out all the lumps. With a handheld mixer, I like to pre-smash the potatoes a bit before adding the power of the mixer, as a precaution against overmixing.

Avoid a food processor and an immersion blender at all costs, unless you were that weird kid who actually liked eating the library paste, or need something to affix wallpaper with – the speed of the blades will smash that starch into a sticky mess of glue before you can say “gravy.”

What potatoes to use? 

There is a lot of discussion about this and I’d love to tell you that there is no right answer, but that would be a lie. The best potatoes to use are Yukon golds. The combination of starch and density makes the best mashed potatoes. If you can’t get them, use white potatoes. If you can’t get those, use russet potatoes, but if you have enough time, peel and cut them the night before and leave them in a bowl of water in the refrigerator overnight to remove some of the starch before cooking.

Preparing the potatoes

Cut the potatoes such that each piece is roughly the same size and thickness so they boil evenly. Otherwise, they will cook unevenly and you’ll get some hard ones and some soft ones.

If you’re lazy and don’t want to peel the potatoes, that’s OK, but make sure to wash and scrub them well with water before cooking and roughly chop them. If you leave skins on, you might want to rename the potatoes “smashed potatoes” or call them “rustic” or “country-style” or something to act like you did it on purpose and hide the fact that you were just being lazy.

Thomas Keller thinks that for a potato puree you should boil potatoes whole in their skins, then scoop out the flesh and throw away the skins. I have tried this and can discern no taste difference, but if you hate peeling but don’t want peels, this might be a good solution for you.

How to make them ahead

You can make good mashed potatoes a whole day in advance of serving them – and that will involve butter and cream cheese. Here is a recipe that utilizes this technique in case you’re an advance planner.

Mashed potato add-ins and substitutions

You probably know that the basic mashed potato components are butter, milk or cream, and salt and pepper. (Some people like to add a pinch of nutmeg, but I think those people are crazy.) Boil the potatoes per above instructions, drain well, and mash with cut cubes of butter (and/or some of the add-ins below – like sour cream, cream cheese, or what have you.) Add milk, half and half, or cream a bit at a time, plus salt and pepper, and keep mashing and adding until you get the desired smoothness.

There are lots of other ways to change it up, though – whether you’re vegan, lactose-intolerant, or just want some complimentary flavors going on.

In addition to/in place of the butter, try:

• cream cheese
• sour cream
• browned butter
• creme fraiche
• soft cheese like a mild brie
• olive oil
• soft goat cheese
• mascarpone

In addition to or in place of the milk/cream, try:

• chicken broth
• buttermilk
• almond milk
• soy milk

Things you can mix in:

• caramelized onions
• roasted garlic
• horseradish
• dijon or whole grain mustard
• wasabi paste
• grated parmesan or other hard cheese
• grated cheddar
• crispy bacon pieces
• roasted red peppers
• sundried tomatoes
• chopped fresh herbs
• chives
• parsley
• chopped sauteed kale or cabbage
• curry powder
• chili powder
• pesto
• orange zest or lemon zest (works well with parsley)
• truffle oil

 What’s your favorite way to make mashed potatoes? Did I miss any tips or add-in ideas? I would love to hear them! 

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Of course, I could just make a different recipe for each member of the family, but that’s not always the most practical thing to do. So in this case I decided to adapt a recipe for pumpkin fudge from Brown Eyed Baker, and make 4 variations in the same pan. Each quadrant will appeal to a different family member, but I only have to make the fudge one time and dirty out one pan. It’s win win win win.

I am a big fan of pumpkin, cinnamon, and dark chocolate together, so I made half the recipe with white chocolate as it calls for, and half with dark chocolate. Then I carefully poured each type into one side of a 9×13 pan, then pressed nuts into half of each kind. This yields a quarter pan each (or about 12 small squares) of pumpkin fudge, pumpkin pecan fudge, chocolate pumpkin fudge, and chocolate hazelnut pumpkin fudge. Of course, you can use whatever kind of nuts you like. Heck, I probably should have found a little corner to throw some coconut on for my coco-crazy brother-in-law. Next time.

Now I just have to find another kind of fudge to make for the sister who can’t stand pumpkin!

Pumpkin Fudge, Four Ways in One Pan
makes one 9×13 pan, 48 small squares or 36 larger squares. You need a candy thermometer for this.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 12 Tblsp butter, cut in pieces
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 7 oz. marshmallow creme
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• handful each of pecan halves and chopped hazelnuts, toasted

METHOD:

• Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray or line with foil, allowing to hang over the edges for easy removal.
• Put white chocolate in a mixing bowl, and dark chocolate in a smaller bowl. Put both bowls next to the stove.
• Put both sugars, butter, evaporated milk, pumpkin, spices, and salt in a heavy saucepan and bring to a full boil. Cook until the mixture reaches about 235 degrees F, which will take about 10-15 minutes.
• When mixture reaches 235, turn off the heat. Quickly stir in marshmallow creme and vanilla.
• Carefully pour half the mixture into the bowl with the white chocolate and stir with a heat-proof spatula or whisk to melt the chocolate. Add the dark chocolate to the remaining mixture in the pot and stir to melt. (At this stage it’s nice if you have a helper, but if not, you can do one in each hand.)
• Pour lighter fudge into one side of prepared pan. Pour darker fudge into the other side. Smooth with a spatula. When cool enough to touch but still warm enough to manipulate, firmly press hazelnuts into half of chocolate side and pecans into half of white chocolate side.
• Let cool for 1 hour, then cover and refrigerate overnight before cutting and serving.

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Another esteemed guest emailed this morning and referred to me as “maker of the most wonderful brownies known to man.”

Simply put, I don’t think I’ll ever make another kind of brownie. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a brownie that tastes better than these!

I saw the recipe on Broken Record, who got it from the Brown Eyed Baker. I did some things a little differently than either of them, so I’m rewriting the recipe here with my own instructions. But I thank them from the bottom of my heart for inspiring this fabulous recipe.

Sexy Salted Caramel Brownies

makes a 9×13 pan of very rich brownies and you will be surprised how few people it serves in the end since everyone will want to eat at least 2 or 3

Ingredients:

for the caramel:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 Tblsp light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sour cream

for the brownie batter:

• 11 oz. dark chocolate (I used 70% cacao)
• 1 cup butter, cut in pieces
• 2 Tblsp dark cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups flour

Method:

for the caramel:

• Put sugar and corn syrup in a heavy saucepan (preferably with a light colored bottom so you can see the color.) Add enough water to make the consistency of wet sand, about 1/4 cup. Swirl the pan to combine sugar and water.
• Turn the heat on high and let cook, without stirring, until the sugar turns a dark amber color. If one part of the pan is turning brown and the other part isn’t, swirl the pan a little to mix it together.
• Turn off the heat and carefully whisk in the cream to stop the caramelization. Add the salt and the sour cream and stir with a whisk. Set aside to cool.

for the brownie batter:

• Preheat the oven to 350. Line a 9×13 inch pan with foil, folding it over the edges (you’ll be glad you did this!) Spray with cooking spray or lightly butter.
• Using the microwave or a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter together until completely melted.
• Off the heat, stir in the cocoa powder and the sugars, mixing with a whisk.
• Add 3 eggs and whisk to completely combine. Add remaining 2 eggs and vanilla and whisk to combine.
• Add the flour and switch to a rubber spatula to mix it in gently until no pieces of white remain.

to assemble and bake:

• Pour half the brownie batter into the prepared pan and spread it out evenly with the spatula.
• Pour most of the caramel over the brownie batter, reserving about 1/4 cup of it. Try not to get too much up against the edges, but do get a nice even layer over the bulk of the batter.
• Dip the rubber spatula into the remaining batter and get a big glop of it on the spatula. Let the batter fall off the spatula in a wide ribbon over the caramel as you move across the pan. Repeat until you use all the batter and have covered up the caramel. If it’s not all covered, use the spatula to gently spread the batter. It’s OK if a little caramel is peeking out, though.
• Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake another 20-25 minutes, until a knife in the center comes out clean (clean of brownie, anyway – it might have some caramel on it.)
• As soon as you pull the brownies out of the oven, drizzle the remaining caramel over the top as evenly as possible.
• Sprinkle immediately with a handful of turbinado sugar and a healthy pinch or two of fleur de sel.
• Let cool and cut at room temperature. You can store them in the fridge if you’re not eating them right away, but bring them back to room temperature before eating. Don’t leave them out for too long or they’ll get very gooey and oozy.

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Cakes in jars are great for a picnic or to bring to someone’s house, since they’re completely sturdy, sealable, and portable. Rainbow cakes in a jar are also the perfect treat for all your unicorn friends.

“What’s that, magical horsie? Oh, you’re very welcome, it was my pleasure. I hope you enjoy your cake.”

I made them in pint-sized jars, which is definitely at least a 2-person serving. Half-pint jars would be much more sensible for individual servings! These were for the Food Blogger Bake Sale, so I dug out some circular labels left over from my wedding and marked the jars on top.

Here’s how you do it…

Super Duper Rainbow Cakes – in a Jar

• Buy 6 pint-sized, wide mouth jars (or 12 half-pint jars.) It’s important to use wide mouth jars so you can maneuver the cake batter around. I ran them through the dishwasher and made sure they were completely dry before getting started.
• Preheat the oven to 375. Make a double recipe of your favorite white cake or two boxes of white cake mix. I used Amy Sedaris’s vanilla cake recipe.
• Divide the batter roughly between 6 bowls. Color the batter with rainbow colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It’s important to use gel or paste food coloring, not the liquid kind, or the colors won’t be as vibrant. I colored the batter with Wilton’s gel food coloring which always works great!
• Now, to layer the batter in the jars; this would make a GREAT personality test. You can either drop dollops of the colors in the jar in order, and let the colors fall where they may. That would be the “laid back” personality type. I did sort of a “Type A Minus” personality thing, by carefully spooning the batter into the jars and attempting to spread each color out somewhat evenly but not perfectly. The “Type A Plus” thing to do would be to put the batter color into individual Ziploc bags or pastry bags and pipe each layer, so you would get near perfection. Choose your style and get that batter in there! You only need to fill the jars to about 3/4 full as the cake will rise.
• Put the jars in a pan with sides, like a 9×13 brownie pan. Put the pan in the preheated oven and pour in about 1/2 inch of water.
• Bake for about 40-45 minutes, until a knife or skewer inserted all the way down comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven, take out of the water, and set aside to cool.

(When you open your oven, you get this visual treat:)

But we’re not quite done! On to the frosting…

• Use a knife to cut off some of the top of the cake to make room for the frosting. If you really really really like frosting, scoop out some of the middle of the cake, too. (The pieces you cut off kind of look like psychedelic mini cupcakes–save those for a kid you like.)
• Make white frosting. I made a half recipe of Magnolia Bakery’s vanilla buttercream, which is my favorite.
• Use a small spatula to scoop frosting on top of the cakes, almost to the top.
• Cover with a lid and brighten people’s day!

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