Dirt Cake

This year for Christopher's birthday party we decided on a construction/building theme.  We first thought that it would be more construction based and I begged Katie to let me make a dirt cake.  She wouldn't have it.

Finally after weeks of begging she decided that we could indeed have a dirt cake as long as there was also some regular cupcakes for people who might be scared to eat dirt, worms and ooey gooey pudding mixture.  Those people are missing out.

I basically followed the recipe over on Baked Bree.  Aunt Kathy's traditional recipe calls for vanilla pudding but when I saw Bree incorporating chocolate pudding instead (indecently those pudding boxes from trader joe's are awesome looking) I knew that that was for me.  Bree also used real homemade whipped cream which, I think is probably a great idea! However, I took the escape route and went for good old Cool Whip.  12 oz of Cool Whip is the replacement.  I also chose to just fill up  a regular 9x13 (actually this pan is bigger for lasagna) dish instead of flowerpots cause this is a party for boys.  I got two types of gummy worms--the regular and the neon.  Personally, I think the neon ones are delicious but the regular ones look rather cool slithering through the dirt and you can hide them more like real worms.  I hope these kids aren't too grossed out to try it!

I'll be serving the cake in these small, clear "crystal" style plastic cups.  I bought forks to eat with although spoons probably would've been the better option...oh well forks it is.

Let's Eat Dirt!