Many cake bakers and decorators alike know that presentation can be everything. If you're making a dirt cake to serve at a spring function or children's event, consider serving it in a flower pot. You can use one large pot for a whole group, or use several smaller pots for individual servings. Decorated right, this cake might just fool your guests.
Making a Flower Pot Dirt Cake
The basic dirt cake recipe is extremely simple. Once you've made the various components, simply assemble it inside a flower pot. You can follow the instructions listed below, or you can simply click and print the image to the right. The instructions for making the flower pot dirt cake will open as a .pdf file, and you can print it or save it to your computer for easy future reference. If you need help downloading the printable instructions, check out these helpful tips.
Ingredients and Materials
- 1 package chocolate sandwich cookies
- 1 package chocolate pudding mix
- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 6-ounce package of cream cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Decorations, including plastic or edible flowers, gummy worms and bugs
- 1 large flower pot or 5 small pots, washed well
- Parchment paper
Instructions
- Line flower pot(s) with parchment paper.
- Place the sandwich cookies in a food processor and pulse until the crumbs resemble dirt. Set aside.
- Make the pudding according to the directions.
- Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.
- Cream together the powdered sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla extract.
- Mix the cream cheese mixture into the pudding.
- Fold the whipped cream into the pudding mixture.
- Spread a layer of cookie crumbs onto the bottom of the flower pot until the cookie is covered.
- Spoon the pudding mixture into the flower pot, filling it approximately halfway.
- Add some gummy candies, like worms or bugs, on top of the pudding if serving to children. This can be a fun surprise as they dig through their cake.
- Cover the candy with an additional layer of cookie crumbs.
- Fill the rest of the pot nearly to the top with pudding. Stop when you are approximately 1 1/2 inches from the top of the pot.
- Spread the remainder of the cookie crumbs on top of the pudding to cover it.
- Decorate the top of the pot.
Decoration Ideas
No dirt cake in a flower pot is complete without the flower itself, and additional decorations to make it believable.
Add Flowers to the Pot
Flowers in the pot are part of the fake-out nature of this dessert. Create flowers by doing the following:
- "Plant" several bunches of washed, fake flowers into the pot.
- Create some flowers out of icing. Place either one large flower on top of each small pot, or place several flowers across the top of each pot for an icing bouquet. Drop buttercream flowers look lovely and taste great, but larger, solid gum paste flowers will stand on their own.
- Plant a single, edible flower in the center of each pot.
- Bake flower shaped sugar cookies with a stick at one end. Decorate the cookies with royal icing once they are cooled and place them in the dirt cake.
- Purchase flower shaped candy molds and make candies in the shape of flowers. Attach a stick to the backside and put them into the cake.
- Stick unwrapped flower shaped lollipops into the dirt cake.
Additional Decorations
A few additional ways to decorate the top of the flower pot include:
- Bury some gummy worms or bugs in the cookie dirt at the top of the pot and brush the cookie crumbs off parts of them. The bugs and worms should appear to be crawling up out of or through the cake.
- Serve the cake with a clean gardening spade to scoop it out with.
- Tie a decorative ribbon around the outside of the pot that matches the season, flower, or themed occasion the cake was made to celebrate.
- Present the flower pot or pots on gardening trays and surrounded by fresh or fake flowers.
Create a Cake to Be Remembered
Being served a cake residing inside a flower pot is something that everyone who receives on is sure to remember. Create one or several flower pot cakes for your next spring or garden gathering and let your cake decorating skills bloom.
