Soda Pop Cupcakes

I thought you might be interested in how I made those Soda Pop Cupcakes for Madison's party. Madison wanted the rainbow chip cake, as any self-respecting child would.  We mixed up a box after we prepped the baking dishes...

I thought long and hard about how to cook a cupcake so it baked tall.  I thought about my IKEA glasses, but wasn't sure they were "oven-safe".  Finally I remembered a post I saw about making mini pies in canning jars.  BINGO! 

Now, you don't want to use anything that narrows at the top. I figured wide-mouth was a must, but didn't want to give the girls a pint of cake, so... I found my jelly jars. They are just wide enough for a small canning lid, but don't narrow at the top. They are basically the same size top to bottom which means you can get the cake out after you bake it! Kind of important!

I threw in a jumbo muffin wrapper, lightly sprayed the exposed jar with pam cooking spray, and spooned in the batter.

 

If you notice the muffin wrapper in the picture above is not sticking to the sides of the jar.  I finally realized that you need to squish the ridges of the wrappers to make the pleats go all the way up the sides, make them tighter into a cylinder shape, so they will stay to the sides when these bake.  Like this:

pull the pleats together, then...

Squish!  It doesn't need to look pretty, just thinna!  Reminds me of my goal for me!  Pretty isn't something I have control over, just the thinna part :0)

Squeeze all the way around, then it should look something like this.  Back to the cake mix...

so I filled the cupcake wrappers just about to the top.  Unfortunately, I only had three jelly jars empty.  I did do one regular pint jar.  It made a very large Soda Pop Cupcake-Madison claimed that one as the birthday girl, of course.  I baked them for 25 min, the pint jar took about 30.  With only three, it took me 3 batches.  I figure you can get about 12 out of one Pillsbury cake mix.  I say Pillsbury because I actually prefer Betty Crocker.  I think they bake up nicer, but Pillsbury has better rainbow chip, and smaller boxes I think.  I better stop with that before I am proven wrong.  

Anyway, they look like strange Twinkies when they are done.  You should let them cool on a wire rack, in the jar, or they tend to suck in in the middles.  Slip them out after a while, then let them cool the rest of the way.  I only sprayed the pam the first time and never had a problem getting them out of the jars.  I didn't wash the jars between batches either.  Just went for it like a two-year-old at the swimming pool :0)

 

I exercised my maximum self control and let Madison frost these cupcakes.  I did stress her out explaining just how to do it (mommy is a bit of a perfectionist FREAK).  She did a fabulous job.  We went with strawberry frosting, which I had forgotten how YUMMY it was.  I had Strawberry frosting on every single birthday cake I ever had up until I was, like 20.  I think it is time for a come-back.  Anyway, I used the bigger star tip, no. 21 and some cream cheese frosting to swirl on the "whipped cream."  Just because I am absolutely fabulous at getting off the subject, I love the decorator tip no. 21.  We should be married.  I think if I were given the choice of all the decorator tips but lovely no. 21, or no other but no. 21, I would choose no. 21.  We are bosom buddies, best friends, soul mates, as far as cake decorating is concerned.  You should buy on ;0)

Top your cupcakes off with a maraschino cherry(or atomic fireball candy) and a "straw" of licorice and you are in business.  These were fun and very stress-free.  I would give these a 2 on the exotic scale of hardness.  You can do it!

Here are some happy customer photos

YUMM!

This project was linked up to:

and   http://thepersimmonperch.blogspot.com/