Edible Soil / Dirt and Novelty Flowerpot Cake

I made edible soil yesterday so that I could sprinkle it on top of a Novelty Flowerpot Cake, of which I’ve made two in the past day.

The first was for the 100^th episode of the Sodshow, and the second for somebody very special in my life. My Godmother celebrates a big birthday in the next few days, she’s mad about gardening and because I’m brutal at sugarcraft I figured I’d better come up with something simple but impressive for her cake.

Rather than wrestle with fondant icing to make the cake look like a flowerpot, why not use the real deal? Terracota flowerpots are brilliant. You can scrub them clean in hot, soapy water then dry them in the oven at 150 degrees Celcius which handily also sterilises the pots to hold food.

Making the cake to go into the flowerpot was a cinch. I based the recipe on my Blondies but added 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the mixture. This time around I used honeycomb crunchy bars rather than whipped nougat bars.

Remember when we made mud pies as children? We fantasised about eating this (ahem) delicious concoction but rarely ever did unless from a dare!

It’s not dirt without worms so I included some jelly worms that were on special in my local supermarket this week. They are hidden throughout the cake.

Finally, to sandwich the layers I used icing. Each component doesn’t take long to make to be honest so you can prepare them a day or two in advance, making sure to chill the icing if you’re not using it straight away. Assembly is made easy with the assistance of some circular cookie cutters.

Ingredients

• 10 digestive or similar wholemeal biscuits
• 30g sultanas or raisins
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

Method

Put biscuits into a sturdy plastic bag and batter the bejeepers out of it with whatever you have to hand until they are a fine crumb. Alternatively you can use the stand mixer and the beating paddle attachment. Once you have a fine crumb, decant the biscuit into a large bowl and pour in all the other ingredients (cocoa powder, butter and dried fruit) and stir well with a fork. Take care to loosen all the ingredients so that they’re not sticking together.

Leave the edible dirt to one side for 30 minutes to allow the butter to cool. It will become a bit sticky so after those 30 minutes you will need to run the fork through the mixture.

If one should have some leftovers after assembling the cake it would make sense to have a worm sandwich then? Yes?