"Is it fireworks season yet?"
I've been asking Man-Hands this question for literally a month and a half. I love fireworks. And unfortunately I don't really get fireworks down here in Central Illinois. I found this out the hard way - fireworks only come on (and the days surrounding) 4th of July. What an awful thought! When I lived in the suburbs of Chicago, I used to watch fireworks from the edge of my townhome complex every Friday night when they would burst in vibrant color over the baseball stadium. Loud pops of color would shoot through the night sky in blues, reds, purples, and the shimmery ones that crackled as they came down were my favorite! This week on Cooking Class Hero, we decided that we would be remiss if we didn't do something patriotic. I decided to make something reminiscent of those fireworks that remind me of home. The brilliant colors bring to life everything I miss about summers back home and bring promises of all the wonderful memories I plan to make in the firework-less town I now call home :)
One last thing before I conclude the sappy portion of this post: Thanks again to Man-Hands for being incredibly patient with me every week on production day. It occurs to me on posts like this one that you are an incredible man and quite possibly the most patient human being on the planet for dealing with me taking 2 hours to make one batch of cake an taking a million pictures that I deem unacceptable anyway! Thank you for putting up with my work and being a part of it :)
Now that we're done with that, let's have some cake!
Normally I like to make my frosting and cake from scratch, but let's face it. It's the 3rd, I work full time and am in school full time, and of course I forgot to make something festive. So we're going the route of cake mix and canned frosting! Hooray short-cuts! If you want to make them from scratch, by all means, please do! But if you're like me and love being festive too much to give in and buy something from the grocery store, this is definitely a good route to take.
Make your cake mix, and separate it into 3 different bowls.
Now dye your hands blue and red! Just kidding :)
Dye your bowls of cake mix blue and red, and keep one white.
Pam is your best friend. Seriously. Spray the inside of your jars, or you will regret everything about these cakes!
Start filling them layer by layer with each different color. Make sure that each color touches the sides of the jar so it shows on the outside as different colors :)
Keep layering... Yes, it gets SUPER messy!
And we're done layering! Make sure you only fill your jars halfway up. Filling them up more is incredibly tempting, but don't give in! If you fill them up much more, they'll spill over the top and onto your baking sheet while they're in the oven. And cake outside of the jar is much less fun than cake inside the jar. You could stop here, but I'd recommend not leaving your jars like this. Leaving cake batter on the inside is going to turn those little chunks black by the time you get done baking them! Cleaning before baking is a lot easier than cleaning after baking - I promise!
All clean and ready for the oven :)
And now the frosting... (because why wouldn't I use blue frosting? We're being festive, it's totally cool!)
And here we have summer all jarred up and ready to go! Fireworks here I come!
Ingredients:
1 box of white cake mix - prepared
Red food coloring
Blue food coloring
Pam
Mason Jars
1.) Make your cake batter as per the instructions on the box and separate it into 3 different bowls. Tint one bowl a deep red and the other a very deep blue. Keep one bowl white.
2.) Spray the inside of your mason jars with non-stick spray
3.) Layer cake mix into each jar color by color until you've filled each jar halfway up. Be sure not to over-fill so it doesn't spill onto your baking sheet in the oven!
4.) Clean out bits of cake batter from top of jar and place both jars on baking tray. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes or until centers no longer jiggle when pushed.
5.) Remove from oven and let cool completely.
6.) Frost with icing of your choice.
7.) Enjoy!
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