Dirt Cake

At my friends BBQ - I used gerber daisies, my favorite.

Sorry for the bad picture quality - this was taken with my phone on my kitchen table

Mini dirt cakes from my friends baby shower

This is one of my most fun desserts. When I was little my mom used to make this in the summertime when company would come over. We would eat dinner out on the back porch a lot in the summer so she would put this out as the centerpiece - not telling anyone it was actually dessert. She got a kick out of everyone faces when she would start spooning out the dirt from the pot into bowls for people to eat. To add to the fun she would use a hand trowel to scoop out the mixture. Recently I made this for my friends monkey baby shower, only I spread the mixture out into mini flower pots I purchased at ikea. I put 1-3 small daisies in each pot - really fun. I also made this for a friends BBQ and people loved it! It would make a great hostess gift if you purchased a fun flower pot and then left the pot and trowel with the hostess. Kids also love this and I can't wait to make it for my own one day. However you do it, its fun to not let anyone know that it's dessert until you are ready to serve. Keep in mind this should be eaten with a spoon in a bowl - it's not the most beautiful dessert once scooped but it tastes amazing! I apologize for not having a photo of the cake scooped out. Both times I made this in the past few weeks I was at a party and didn't have my camera ready when people dug in :-(

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cup milk
• 2 pkg vanilla instant pudding
• 12 oz cool whip
• 1/4 cup butter
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 1/4 packages of Oreo cookies
• Terra cotta pot
• Hand garden trowel
• Bouquet of flowers

Directions:

1. In a large bowl cream together milk and vanilla pudding. Add in cool whip and mix together until just blended. Don't over mix.
2. In another bowl cream together butter, cream cheese, and confectioners sugar.
3. Blend both mixtures together and set aside.
4. Using a food processor crush 1 1/4 bag of Oreo Cookies. The cream in the center will dissolve into the cookie crumb.
5. Take your new clean terra cotta flower pot and make sure the hole on the bottom is plugged either with tinfoil or a plastic plug from a garden shop.
6. Layer cookies with cream mixture starting with a cookie layer and ending with a cookie layer (for the dirt on top)
7. Take your bunch of flowers cut the stems evenly and wrap the base of them in tinfoil. Place the flowers with the tinfoiled stems and put them right into the center of the pot up to the edge of the tinfoil so you can't see it. You can place more cookie mixture around the base of the flowers so not to see any foil. The mixture is thick enough to hold the flowers up.

* Refrigerate leftovers or if you make in advance refrigerate until you are ready to put it out on the table. It can be left out for about 2 hours otherwise it won't taste as good warm.

* you can also put gummy worms throughout the layers and on top for a kids party.