Four minutes.
What can I do in four minutes or less? Take a shower? Probably. But not my preference. Brush my teeth? Absolutely. Eat my lunch? Typically. But it would probably be better for my waistline if I slowed things down. Make Minute Rice? Nope. It needs a full minute more cooking time. Run a mile?
Hahahahaahhaha …..
When I crossed paths with this blog (and vlog) post telling me I could make delicious carrot cake with cream cheese frosting ~ in a mason jar, to boot ~ in four minutes, I knew I needed to try it out. I mean, it did fit in with my whole-mason-jar-only-projects-as-the-tendon-in-my-finger-takes-six-to-eight-weeks-to-heal-theme …
Oh, and it took me less than four minutes to make the decision to make my very own 4-minute microwave carrot cake in a mason jar …
Now if you want the recipe, you’ll need to click here. It’s brilliant. It’s delicious. It comes with a video tutorial. And because of all that, I just don’t feel right cutting and pasting it here onto my blog …
But what I can offer are a few tips. Lessons learned, if you will …
Lesson #1: Only fill the jar about 1/4 full with batter. As it cooks in the microwave it will rise. And rise. And if you thought it was a good idea to cram all that batter into one 500 ml mason jar … packing it in right to the tippy top of that jar … about two-minutes into cooking you’ll quickly learn that it was NOT a good idea. In fact, it was a very, very bad and very, very messy idea …
Lesson #2: You won’t need the full 4-minute cook time if you divide the batter into two 500 ml mason jars. You’ll need half that …
Lesson #3: This is not a make-ahead-and-serve-hours-later kind of recipe. This is a cook and eat right away. Well, within 30-minutes or so. Because hours later your scrumptious carrot cake will harden into a brick-like substance that will need to be scraped and scrubbed and soaked for hours in soapy water to dislodge it from the jar …
Lesson #4: Cream cheese frosting is bad news. As in it tastes so amazingly delicious that you’ll be tempted to keep spooning it into your mouth while the microwave timer counts down from 2:00 …
1:59 … 1:58 … 1:57 … 1:56 … 1:55 …
… ding. Thus forcing you to make a second batch …
And once that carrot cake was cooked and topped with cream cheese frosting and nuts, I had something new to add to my four-minutes-or-less list:
Devour mason jar carrot cake. 
P.S. These mason jar desserts are not helping my diet. Like this one. And this one. I’m thinking my next mason jar recipe might just involve a vegetable or two …
You Might Also Like …
Lemon Meringue Pies in Mason Jars
Lemon Sorbet (without Ice Cream Maker)
Peanut Butter & Banana Almond Milk Smoothie
You can find more recipe ideas by clicking here …
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Jarden Home Brands provided me with the mason jar mugs but all opinions are my own.
MUST try this! I just made little pies in the smaller jars — I may try to modify to fit in those!
I just love carrot cake and have an extra 4.5 mins to spare. Perfect. Sharing on my wow’s tomorrow.( Sat)
Try the new Cool Whip Cream Cheese Icing (in the freezer section next to the Cool Whip). You will eat the entire container. It’s the best stuff ever. I need to try the chocolate and the vanilla also.
Now that’s what I call dessert in under 5 minutes! Looks GREAT…keep them coming!!! hugs…5 YUMS UP for this one!
You are not my friend for sharing this recipe. The only thing keeping me from scarfing desserts 24/7 is the prep time.
You put Rachel’s 30 minute meals to shame….love it Linda!!…Have a great weekend!
These sound amazing! And I only have to use a microwave??? The end must be near….
Mmmmm. We love carrot cake. I could make a couple of these for dessert in a jiffy. Thanks girl! Have a perfect weekend.
Carrots are vegetables! 😉
What Merri Jo said … carrots are veggies … here’s to more weeks of tendon healing and quick desert making.
That is clearly to dangerous to my tenous hold on healthy eating! Winter is over so I want to be healthier, but spring heralds the arrival of summer cocktail season!
Hi, this was a nice post. I wondered if you would like to link it in to the new Food on Friday which is running right now over at Carole’s Chatter. We are collecting recipes using carrots and/or leeks. This is the link . I hope you pop over to check it out. There are lots of great recipes already linked in.
This is fabulous. I love it. I will definitely make some, love carrot cake. I would love for you to link up to my Inspire Me party that is ongoing. This is such a great idea.
http://www.astrollthrulife.net/2013/04/162nd-inspire-me-tuesday.html
Hugs, Marty
This looks amazing. I must try it. We have a link party called Wednesdays Adorned From Above Blog Hop and would love to have you share this and any other posts with everyone. It runs from Tuesday night through midnight Sunday. Here is the link to the party.
http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2013/04/wednesdays-adorned-from-above-blog-hop_30.html
We hope to see you there.
Debi and Charly @ Adorned From Above
This is awesome! I didn’t even know this was an option 🙂 I’m hosting a new linky party at http://hickorytrailblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/efforts-and-assets-linky-party-1.html
I would love to have you!
Angela