Dinosaur Bone Dirt Cake // How-To

May 15, 2019

Dinosaur Bone Dirt Cake // How-To

Dinosaur Bones Dirt Cake // How-To

My little Axel has been obsessed with dinosaurs these past two years and since it is a pretty common theme for kids to love I thought I would share a little how-to on how I did his dino bone dirt cake from his 3rd birthday party! I saw a video on facebook (one of those that suck you in) of this idea. They took a huge dinosaur toy for this, but I didn't have one on hand and was a little short notice to find one. Instead, I found these skeleton dinosaur toys on Amazon. They worked perfectly and adds more texture to it. Plus you have these cute toys that your child gets afterward or to use for toy bin ideas (I'll be posting my idea with them soon!) to keep your little one busy!

What You Will Need:

-2 Chocolate Box Cakes (baked normally with the additional eggs and oil they need)

-2 Chocolate Icing Tubs

-1 Bag Brown Sugar

-Large Glass Pan (or container long in length that also it deep enough to form molds)

-Almond Bark White Chocolate (I used maybe half of the package with how many I made)

-Box of Oreos

-Dinosaur Toys (I mentioned above)

-Fondant* (*optional for child's name or any words you'd like to add)

-Oh and don't forget your candle/candles!

How-To

-So first I, of course, baked my cakes like I normally make them.

-While you're in the process of baking is when you can make your edible dino bones!

-In a long glass pan (this is what I used. If you have a large container that is longer in length because you want to make several at a time or this process would be very long, and also deep enough so the molds form than that works too!) I dumped a whole bag of brown sugar in and pressed in down to make sure it was packed and even.

-I definitely washed these dino toys beforehand and recommend it! After they're clean and also dry press them into the brown sugar to form your molds. If you mess up just pack it back down and start over. This process was pretty easy though!

-I heated my almond bark (30 seconds, stir, 30 seconds, etc like the instructions say) until melted while getting my molds ready.

-As soon as my chocolate was ready to go so was my molds. This process seems so wrong, but it works! All you do is pour the chocolate into each mold. You can smooth over the top with a spoon, but because I was afraid it might ruin the mold I actually left them alone. It doesn't look pretty, but you end up using the other side anyways!

-Once you have them poured place your container/pan of molds in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. This makes sure they're solid, but also speeds up your time too!

The birthday boy insisted on helping bake the cakes!

I was able to make 4 molds at a time and probably did 4-5 batches to make sure I had enough, but also to make sure if any broke I had extras!

The glass baking pan I mentioned for the molds and the molds I got! They look so cool!

Like I said they don't look too pretty, but again you use the other side of the mold anyways!

-Once your cake is baked and cooled you can just icing like usual.

-As for the bones. You can use a spoon to help scoop them out of the brown sugar, and carefully rub off the excess brown sugar. You can leave them like so, but I wanted mine more white and clean. So I ran them under cold water. It sounds weird, but it made them exactly like I wanted! Plus the cold water doesn't hurt them or melt them. I also want to add that you can reuse the same brown sugar so only one bag is needed!

-Once the cake has icing and is ready. Press your dino bones on (see photo below) however you like! I used just about all the ones I had made, but I had them all around the cake.

-This is when I also added his name in fondant.

So cool right?! This was after washing them with cold water!

With bones and fondant on.

Our two dinosaurs waiting patiently for cake! Haha

-I scooped all the middle cream out of the oreo cookies. I used almost the whole box (with the exception of my little dinos getting some cookies haha) and used my ninja to blend and grate up the cookie part.

-The last step is pouring and patting the cookie crumbs on the cake and I used a clean paintbrush to dust (bonus fun for older kids to do!) around the name and bones. I love the finished look!

The cake was a hit at his party! I hope this how-to was helpful and if you don't have a dino loving kid you can also use this technique on so many different ideas/themes to form edible decor for your cake and cupcakes! You can also see some of the progress of this cake in my vlog!