My son loves to dig in the dirt so I thought a “Dirt Cake” with worms would be a fun way to celebrate and play! I also had to make cupcakes to send to preschool so I had quite a bit of baking to do. This Homemade Dirt Cake in a Wheelbarrow Idea was very easy!
I used a total of 3 box cake mixes, all chocolate (Duncan Hines- 2 regular rich chocolate and 1 German chocolate). The regular chocolate cake mixes were used to make 30 cupcakes and one big round cake (which gets crumbled up anyway so it doesn’t have to be pretty). Then I made a big sheet pan of German chocolate cake (which will also get crumbled up so don’t worry what it looks like). The trick is to not over cook the cakes so it will maintain a nice, moist, dirt-like appearance.
While the cupcakes are cooling, do a little prep for decorating them. Take a gallon size Ziploc bag and fill it up with about half a bag of chocolate Oreo’s and crush them finely. When you’re ready to decorate, pop a container of chocolate icing in the microwave and warm it up to a thick liquid consistency. Then dunk the cupcake top in the icing, and dip it in the crushed Oreo’s.
Put it on your serving platter and insert a knife or handle of a spoon in the top of the cupcake to make a small hole, then insert a gummy worm. I used what are called “splatterpillars” found in the candy section at Wal-Mart. They’re gummies filled with a fruit juice! Most of the cupcakes went to preschool to share with the class and the rest were set aside as a back-up in case my next project: the wheelbarrow cake didn’t turn out!
I found the plastic wheelbarrow at Wal-Mart where they sell the beach toys. It was $10 and came with a couple of shovels and other accessories. Figured it would serve not only as my cake serving dish but also as a good beach/ sandbox toy when the weather warms up! I had to cover the open wheel part in it with plastic wrap and tape so the cake wouldn’t fall though the little opening.
OK, the fun part! In a large mixing bowl, I combined the regular chocolate round cake and the German chocolate sheet cake and chopped/ mixed with a big spoon. I melted 2 canisters of chocolate icing to a pourable consistency and poured that in. I also gave a big squirt of Hershey’s syrup, and threw in the gummy worms. Then stirred it all up and dumped it into the wheelbarrow! Top it off with some more colorful gummy worms (the regular kind is what I used) and pour the remaining crushed Oreo’s on the top. I can’t wait until he sees it today!
Such a cute and fun idea for little boys! Ive been trying to come up with a fun idea for my 2 yrs olds Bday.. this might be it! I might buy a bunch of small/medium dump trucks and fill each one with cake for individual servings/ take home gift. Fun and messy! Thanks!
We made this for my son’s 4th birthday today and he LOVED it! Everyone else loved it as well! He loves the dirt, so this was perfect. We really enjoyed serving everyone “dirt” with “worms”…I kept asking people “would you like some dirt?” Thanks for the great idea!