How to Decorate a Cake With Dirt and Worms

Get the kids involved in this foolproof baking project.

For Halloween or a kid's birthday party, serve up a cake that's as creepy as it is delicious. A cake decorated with dirt and worms is a popular novelty dessert. The decorations are edible and easy to assemble. Use a prepared chocolate sheet cake, round cake or individual cupcakes. You can even bake small cakes in terracotta pots for a garden-themed dirt cake. This decadent chocolate dessert may look grotesque, but you won't be able to resist it.

Things You'll Need

• Prepared chocolate cake or cupcakes
• Piping bag with large, round tip
• Chocolate frosting
• Offset spatula
• Chocolate wafer cookies
• Gummy worms

Instructions

1. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large, round decorating tip with some chocolate frosting.

2. Insert the piping tip into the cake as far as it will go. Squeeze the frosting into the cake as you pull the tip upward. If you are using cupcakes, one hole will do. For sheet cakes or round cakes, insert the tip in several places. Stagger the holes so they look haphazard.

3. Use an offset spatula to cover the rest of the cake or cupcakes with the frosting. Leave an indentation so you can find your holes.

4. Crush a package of chocolate wafer cookies with a rolling pin or in a food processor. Cover the cake with the cookie crumbs, packing them on gently with your hands.

5. Place whole gummy worms into the holes you piped so they are sticking out, like worms coming out of the ground.

6. Fill in empty spaces with more worms, or scatter some around the outside of the cake.

Tips & Warnings

• To make flowerpot cakes with worm decorations, brush the insides of clean, 6-ounce clay pots with vegetable oil. Line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper. Fill 2/3 full with cake batter and bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

• For a Halloween cake, add candy tombstones for a creepy crawly cemetery scene. "Plant" the cakes with large sprigs of mint for a garden theme.

References

• Gingerbread Bagels; Worms in Dirt Cupcakes; June 2011
• Martha Stewart: Flowerpot Cakes