I had the occasion of attending a wedding shower (four long months ago, I’m totally behind), and I made some cupcakes for the occasion. But cupcakes can be quite messy, especially when they have frosting. So how to solve that problem?
You put them in jars, apparently. The new thing is to shove cupcakes into jars and eat them with forks. Well, I’m not sure if it’s a new thing, but it does pop up in bakeries here and there. And I thought, what a great idea to contain the mess.
But you have to wonder how someone even thought of putting cupcakes into jars in the first place, when they were already conveniently in little cupcake wrappers.
Kristin loved getting to her bakery early in the morning, before the sun had risen and before the rest of the world had started moving. The streets were empty, the air was cool, and she could have her time alone in the kitchen before the busy day started.
But today was a special day. She knew that her favorite customer, Nick, was coming in to pick up a birthday cake for a friend. Kristin had had an eye for Nick since the day he started coming into her bakery. Tall, slightly dark, handsome, with a gorgeous smile she could dream about all day. How he kept his incredible figure with such frequent trips to her bakery, she did not know.
She whipped up his birthday cake in a flash, fueled by her anticipation of seeing him once again. The cake layers came out beautifully, and she made a light lemon buttercream with a slight yellow tinge that she spread evenly over the cake. The lettering was in a royal blue: “Happy birthday Jake!” It was Nick’s college friend’s birthday, and he wanted a cake for him. What a wonderful, thoughtful man, Kristin said to herself when she got the order from Nick.
Customers flew through her store, buying pastries left and right like there wasn’t an obesity epidemic in the country, but her heart just wasn’t in it. The singular moment when Nick would enter the store was the only one that mattered to her today. Everything other moment in between was just a delay in getting there.
Finally, the moment came. His piercing eyes nearly shattered the glass door as he strode through it, and Kristin’s heart skipped enough beats that a cardiologist would have been concerned. Nick greeted her with his warm smile, and her heart melted a little like chocolate left out on the counter in warm apartment. “Let me get your cake for you,” Kristin said with a smile, as she rushed to the back to get him the cake she had made earlier in the day.
The instant she entered the back room and his smiling face slipped out of her sight, she longed to see it again. She never moved as fast as she did retrieving the cake, and she opened the door to the front of the bakery to be basked in the warm light emanating from his face.
Her hands trembled a bit as she slid the cake onto the counter towards him. “Is this OK?” she asked timidly, as she stared into the blue eyes she craved to see every day.
“Oh it looks great!” he beamed, making Kristin’s knees buckle a bit from the excitement. It was all she could do to keep herself from kissing him right there across the glass counter. But she couldn’t. It would be so inappropriate in a place of business.
“Hey Kristin,” said Nick, as Kristin’s eyes grew wider at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth. He looked strangely nervous, a side of him she had never seen before. “Um… you wouldn’t be interested in getting dinner sometime, would you?”
Kristin forced herself to take a breath before replying. An instant reply would reek of desperation. “I would love to!” she said, toning down her enthusiasm from what she really felt like inside.
“Great, so how about after work tomorrow?”
“Sounds good to me!” Kristin waved goodbye as Nick left the bakery.
The next 24 hours couldn’t go by fast enough. She couldn’t keep her mind on her work. All she could think about was dinner with the man that made her as wet as a water park when she thought about him at night.
But she had to get through this day and serve her customers. Her specialty was red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The deep, rich red of the slightly chocolate-flavored cupcake with the bright white, tangy cream cheese was a heavenly combination in anyone’s mouth.
Kristin desperately wanted to give her man a sweet treat. But cupcakes are so messy on a date. The crumbs fall all over the place, the frosting gets on your mouth and fingers… really, the only way to eat a cupcake cleanly is on a plate, with a fork. Bringing forks and plates on a date, though? Unimaginable.
She looked around the kitchen. In the corner of the room, there were some mason jars that the bakery sometimes used for canning jelly. That’s it! She could put the cupcakes in the jars, and they’d be self-contained. Just throw a disposable spoon in the jar, and they’d have a way to eat it.
Her signature red velvet cupcakes were soon ready, bright red balls of fire in a neat grid in the muffin tin. She sliced a couple of them crosswise to make red velvet disks, and she put one in the bottom of a jar. The tangy cream cheese frosting went on top of that, and then another red velvet disk. Three more times and the cupcake was complete in the jar. She sprinkled some red sugar sprinkles on top, threw in a plastic spoon, and closed the lid. A perfect dessert in a jar!
Hours later, Kristin found Nick in front of her in a sharp-looking shirt and jeans that were just the right tightness. Her flowy dress perfectly matched her blouse that had just the right number of buttons unbuttoned. Enough to create a little excitement, not too many so as to remove all the mystery. Their dinner conversation flowed like beer out of a keg at a frat party. She soon had an invite back to his apartment, which she accepted with the eagerness of a dog promised unlimited bones.
She gave him the jar with the cupcake inside that she had made earlier. His eyes grew wide with excitement, and he twisted off the lid with such speed it seemed like he had opened thousands of them. Nick thrust the spoon into the opening, reaching as deep as he could with it, reaching the far corners with the tip. The spoon head came out of the opening with a pile of cake and frosting all smashed together. He guided it into his mouth, closing his lips around the shaft and pulling it out, leaving behind the delicious mixture in his mouth.
A soft moan escaped his mouth, as he closed his eyes to savor the taste of the cupcake in his mouth. Seconds later, he slowly opened his eyes to the sight of Kristin sitting on the couch. They stared at each other silently, and Nick knew that he needed to be on the couch with her.
Their thighs touched, and Nick reached up to touch the side of her face. She smiled, which was a green light for Nick to kiss her. Their lips locked together while their hands explored each other’s backs. Shirts flew off of torsos, pants fell off of legs, and then there were two adults in their underwear kissing on a sofa. Their crotches rubbed against each other, and soon after the garments in the way were torn off, exposing the naked flesh that was now free to be touched, caressed, stroked.
Fluids flowing freely over each other, Nick gently inserted his member into Kristin’s sex. They simultaneously moaned, and the thrusting began slowly but intensely. Their bodies rocked back and forth in a rhythm like a small boat at sea, their breathing now synchronized and growing louder by the second.
Heavy breathing turned to soft moaning, and the moaning eventually turned into almost screaming. Kristin threw her head back with her eyes closed, drowning in an ocean of near-climax pleasure. Nick’s thrusting became faster and more urgent, his eyes also closing to take in all of the intense pleasure happening below the waist.
The time had come for both of them, and Nick grunted as he unleashed a torrent inside Kristin, filling her up like an empty water balloon. At the same time, she reached her climax, screaming out Nick’s name as she were encountering her mortal enemy in a final showdown. Her pelvis convulsed with an intensity she had never experienced before, and she felt like she was floating in the air above the couch on a weightless cloud of pure bliss.
Minutes passed while they recovered from their orgasmic rapture. They gathered themselves together and got dressed. There was one final kiss between them before they parted ways. Kristin lingered in the hallway after they said goodbye, touching her hand to his door as she thought of the most incredible moment she had just experienced. All thanks to the cupcake she had put into a jar.
See, they can be so convenient when you don’t want to make a mess. I got the idea from here.
I used pint-size jars, but I really should’ve gotten half-pint jars, since the cupcakes really only take up about half a pint of space.
Red Velvet Cupcakes in Jars
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 ounce red food coloring
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 pound powdered sugar
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.
- Mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined.
- Add the sour cream, milk, food coloring, and vanilla, and mix until the mixture is uniform in color.
- Add the flour mixture, and mix until just combined.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners, and fill them about 2/3 full.
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla using a hand mixer or stand mixer until well-combined.
- Add the powdered sugar gradually until the mixture is smooth.
- Slice the cupcakes horizontally into three layers.
- Put one cupcake layer in the bottom of a jar, and pipe some cream cheese frosting on top.
- Repeat this until the jar is filled, and repeat for the other jars.
The batter, which is very red.
And then the red batter goes into some cupcake liners.
After 20 minutes in the oven, they are done, and they’ve lost a bit of their redness.
Some of the tops turned black for some reason. I just didn’t use those parts…
The cream cheese frosting, white and delicious.
I sliced the cupcakes into three layers, with cream cheese frosting on top of each layer. My jars were a bit big, though, so the cupcakes look small in comparison.
I also added some festive sprinkles.
These are nice for some special occasion, but really, getting the jars, washing them out, and then doing all this horizontal cupcake slicing along with all those layers of frosting is quite a bit of work. Then again, I’m not a professional piper, and I find frosting regular cupcakes to be quite an ordeal. They do look pretty with the sprinkles, though.