Novelty Cake No 1 – A Pot Of Mud Dirt Cake

In the past 2 weeks my whims and fancies have shifted to the wonderful world of cake decorating. As I have mentioned before, I have been dawdling over the idea of baking a ‘fun’ cake for my son’s 2nd birthday which happens to be next month. To achieve that with a certain flair, I need to practice and perfect my methods. As luck would have it, it was our 5th Wedding Anniversary yesterday and the ocassion called for a special cake. So a week ago I started scouring hundreds of Novelty Cake recipes and design ideas. The idea of the ‘Dirt Cake’ in a plastic flower pot intrigued me. But I wanted a proper cake, not a dessert ladled into a store-bought pot, which is what the ‘Dirt Cake’ really is.

After a bit of thought I braved the ‘Pot Of Mud’ Cake and it turned out quite nice. The idea was pretty straightforward and required minimum fuss on my part. I baked a Chocolate Mudcake in a deep souffle pan, to achieve the ‘flower pot’ shape. Next, I dug up the top to resemble loose, wet soil. The cake crumbs which I dug up were scattered at the base of the cake and decorated with raspberries and green marzipan leaves to get a garden ‘look and feel’. I decorated the upper rim of the ‘flower pot’ with white marzipan trim and handmade blue marzipan flowers. I stuck an actual steel and wood mini spade in the mud to complete the cake.