Potting Bench Desserts

Our Weekend Garden Desserts

Who knows? Someday we might ACTUALLY use our potting bench as a potting bench?

But until that time, food looks GREAT on it!

We spent last weekend doing some sweets cooking.

Of course, I pretty much use the same old food ingredients, I just make them look differently.

Sugar Free Devil’s Food Cake Mix

Blue dye added to the vanilla frosting mix.

Now accent with some lovely flowers and you have something spectacular!

My Mudpie “DIRTY” Cup Cakes With Bugs

I Created These

They just remind me of getting outside and planting herbs, plants, and flowers into the soil, finding Earth worms and all sorts of squirmy things.

SPRING IS HERE

I simply used the same sugar free Devil’s Food cake mix from above, sugar free chocolate frosting mix, some smashed up Oreo cookies, some lovely green lemon balm herbs, and I added a very special ingredient, BUGS!

Chocolate Covered Bugs!

You can even see their legs through the chocolate. Kewl, huh?

Hey, don’t knock it! Bugs may be all there is to eat in the future. AND there will be no chocolate to coat them in. The Cocoa trees will be non-existent.

Enjoy it while you can!

Veronica’s Garden Cake

I took my daughter over this one to her house.

(I didn’t tell her I set it outside with the bugs, otherwise she wouldn’t eat it.)

Blue hard rock sugar topped the cake with some jelly belly’s.)

You don’t need expensive things, just make something cheap LOOK expensive.

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Making the Cakes and Cupcakes

I am very simple when it comes to any of my dessert ingredients. My favorites are Angel Food cakes, Deviled Food cakes, and usually a white cake mix. My frostings? Are usually just chocolate or vanilla. I just try and make them look different.

Adding any colorful food dye to a vanilla frosting transforms the look into something grand.

The cake pans above, I bought at the dollar store.

Simple, easy and cheap!

Mixing the Cake Batter to Bake in the Oven

My grandmother brought me that vintage mixer above in her luggage when she came to visit us when we were living in Hawaii. I had asked her for one. She found it at a yard sale for $20.00. I wouldn’t trade it for any modern day, top of the line, mixer for anything in the world.

It comes with the prettiest white glass bowls.

I made two Devil’s Food cakes and with the leftover frosting, I made about 12 cupcakes.

Making the Cakes Flat on Top

Just take a serrated bread knife and cut the top off the cake in order to make it flat.

Now it’s ready for frosting. I’m mixing the blue dye into some fluffy frosting.

I like frosting just glopped on nice and thick.

Ready for the Adornments

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Now For The Cupcakes

These cupcakes are Based on a Memory

We went camping a lot when I was growing up and I had to entertain myself quite a bit while out in nature. Whether I was scouring a lake or pond looking for frogs or salamanders, or even snakes and worms. Yes, I was that tough. Or skipping many a stone along the river bank.

I can remember making the best mud pie of my life while camping with my little brother Johnny. I was about 10 and he was about 2. We were sitting underneath the picnic table and I had taken my mother’s pretty fish plates to form my mud pies in. I thought they were perfect!

These cupcakes remind me of that camping trip.

The crushed Oreo’s look like great dirt and soil that you would find out in nature. This kind of soil is what Earth worms do to make it healthy. Earth worms are your best friend when planting a garden.