My kids thrive on eggs a thousand different ways, they snack on dried anchovies (yeah, crazy, I know!), and don’t flinch when we say baked peaches are dessert in the summer.
BUT…
We take birthdays very seriously. There ain’t no way we are behaving ourselves when it comes to dessert! This past weekend my husband got another year closer to 40 and declared that he wanted dirt cake. Not just any dirt cake, mind you, he wanted chocolate peanut butter dirt cake. When I was growing up, I loved dirt cake. I requested it for at least a few birthdays, complete with the foil-lined flower pot and fake flowers on top. Boy was I excited to make this for him!
kids making dirt cake
I set out searching Pinterest for a peanut butter chocolate version, but found NONE. Can you believe that? In the world of pinterest, what I wanted apparently didn’t exist. So I invented. I based this on an Original Dirt Cake recipe and made several changes, including real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip, and a 50/50 split between vanilla and chocolate pudding.
The morning of daddy’s birthday, I told the kids we were going to eat dirt and worms for dessert. They didn’t buy it… at first. Then they said they were ok trying some dirt and worms because, let’s face it, in a household where true sugar-filled sweets are rare these kiddos cannot wait to get their hands on some homemade goodies. Of course once they started helping me make the “dirt” and saw the “worms,” they laughed. And begged to try a gummy worm.
But the BEST part of making daddy’s dirt cake was watching him eat it. When the man pauses multiple times and says “dang, this is amazing!” you know it’s good. So I wanted to share.
CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER DIRT CAKE
To make your cooking experience easy, I’ve included a few links to items I use and love. Please note that I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you.
INGREDIENTS
– 1 full package of oreos
– 1/3 cup butter, softened (I use Kerrygold grass fed butter, available at Costco if you consume it like we do!)
– 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
– 3/4 cup powdered sugar
– 1 package 3.4 oz. instant vanilla pudding
– 1 package 3.4 oz. instant chocolate pudding
– 3 cups of milk (I use whole)
– 8 oz. whipping cream
– 15 Reeses peanut butter cups minis unwrapped and quartered
– 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
– Gummy Worms (these are awesome if you’re looking for something dye-free)
1. Crush oreos in a food processor until they resemble dirt.
2. Beat together butter, cream cheese & powdered sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk vanilla pudding mix & 1.5 cups milk.
4. In a small bowl, whip the cream until it forms peaks. Fold into the vanilla pudding mixture.
5. Fold together cream cheese & pudding mixtures together until smooth.
6. In your whipped cream bowl (for the sake of dirty dishes), whisk the chocolate pudding and 1.5 cups milk. Set for 5 minutes. Swirl your peanut butter into the chocolate pudding.
7. Layer! I am slightly obsessed with my triffle dish because you can see all the amazing layers (snag one here) but you could go fancy and line a flower pot with foil. Always start with about a third of your “dirt.” I then used 1/2 of the vanilla pudding mixture, a few gummy worms, another 1/3 of the dirt, all of the chocolate pudding, sprinkle Reeses cups, the remaining vanilla pudding mixture, and top with what dirt is left and a few worms. Phew!
GLUTEN-FREE OPTION: Substitute a GF oreo and you should be set!
ENJOY!
I have been attempting to get a post up here for about a month, I kid you not. First things first — I re-vamped my blog page so that I am now self hosted, which is pretty cool! But this mama of three thing is no joke. I can barely find five minutes to throw the closest pile of dirty looking fabric into the wash, let alone form a coherent thought and type it onto a page.
we scramble around the house to find a key and save the little rascal.
Decide how big your sign will be. Mine is going above my fireplace, so I wanted it to be approximately
our playground and cut it to size. You want these to be thin pieces of wood too. Keep in mind that once the sign is complete, all the wood together makes it rather heavy.
6. Sketch your letters first. In pencil. I’ve been obsessed with lettering and hand-lettered wall prints for years, and every time I’ve created a sign like this I’ve relied on fonts found on my computer. If there is not one I’m looking for, I download a free one (just google “free fonts). Type the word(s) in a word document and copy them (for those who are comfortable free handing) OR print out the letters in the size you need, cut them out, then trace them onto the sign. To get the curved look of my Lemonade sign below, you can either use a photo editing software like photoshop to curve the letters or draw a bottom line curve on which to place/trace the letters.
It terrifies me because it’s everything I’ve worked hard not to do with my youngsters, yet I feel the pull of society calling me to enroll my oldest (4.5 years) in summer camp. Or preschool. Or a sport. She’s just 4.5!” says my inner voice. Let her be a child! She will have 13 years to be in school more hours than she plays, to be inside more than she is outside, and to endure waaaaaay more academic pressure than children should. Yet I still feel the lure of a society that values busy-ness and find myself wondering if I’m making the right choices.
You ask how is my heart? Right now it is often exhausted from being in full-time parent mode. But on this sunny morning it is joyous, because my colicky newborn is actually sleeping and my older kiddos are outside inventing games in mud puddles and picking blueberries. And that is exactly where they should be.
Yeah, not much changed in that department.
