Valentine’s Day is coming! Another holiday full of love and chocolate, my favourites. So, I wanted to try something simple, sweet and fun using recipes i’m already familiar with, and that are easy.

I also wanted it to be portable, so I decided to bake the cake in mason jars. This is a great way to travel with cake, because you can ice it and seal it with a lid. Then take it where you need to go, serve it up and eat it straight out of the jar! It’s really fun to see people enjoy eating cake in a jar.

Baking in the glass does take a little bit longer than other baking pans, i’ve found. So you have to watch it closely when you near the end of baking time, and adjust as needed. You can use whatever basic cake recipe you want for this, and icing, but I chose the following recipes, which I love.

I started with my favourite classic Butter Cake recipe (but I made a brown sugar version with whole wheat flour too, just what I had in the cupboard today). I had frozen sliced strawberries too, so I lined the jars with strawberries to add some layered colours to the jar. But because I added extra moisture with the strawberries, I knew the liquid portion of the recipe would need to be reduced slightly. I experimented here… The batter looked right to me after mixing, then I dolloped the cake batter into the jars. Adding more strawberries along the way. Red is a great colour for valentine’s day, and you could use raspberries or blackberries too. Lots of frozen fruit options at this time of year.

Portioning cake batter into small mason jars is not that easy really. I didn’t want to deal with piping the batter here either, so I just decided to let it BE MESSY!

In the oven they went, and came out looking GOOD AND GOOEY where the strawberries had cooked down. I let them cool completely before topping with my favourite classic chocolate buttercream icing.  Again, messy icing to keep with a rustic look.

My taste tests along the way validated this valentine’s cake in a jar to be a success (in my opinion). I’ll wait and see if my Valentine agrees 😉

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY and good luck with your cake in a jar!