As summer winds down many gardeners are taking their fresh produce and turning it into a way where they can enjoy that sunny goodness all through winter.

Now that same process of canning can be used to keep a favorite dessert available on the shelf ready to eat at a moment’s notice. Learning how to accomplish that will be the focus of upcoming classes at the Briggs Lawrence Library called Canned Cake Baking.

“I got the idea when I was doing my master’s in library science,” Lori Shafer, adult librarian, said. “We did a pot luck and someone brought a canned cake. It was an apple cake and it is like regular canning except instead of putting in green beans, you bake the cake within the jar.”

The cake poured into the jar is baked in the oven without the lid. After it is baked, the lid is then put on and the heat seals the cake into a jar.

“It comes out round and tastes moist,” Shafer said. “It was amazing.”

At the class Shafer will put together an actual cake and give the filled jars away to participants who can take them home to bake.

The cakes can be made and given away during the holidays or stored to be eaten later on. They stay fresh up to six months in the jar.

“When you get ready to pop it out, you take a knife and skim around the edges and it will pop out,” Shafer said.

Classes will be 6 p.m. Monday at the South Point library and at 2 p.m. on Thursday at the Ironton branch. The class is free, but registration is requested. For more information, contact Shafer at 532-1124.