CELEBRATING OUR 7TH BIRTHDAY WITH A SOIL HORIZON CAKE
We celebrated our 7th birthday in July 2020 with none other than a soil horizon cake.
We’ve made this cake a few times for community events involving kids. The cake is a fun way of explaining soil science and soil formation, and the kids (and adults) get to eat it afterwards!
Here is the recipe for those wanting to get creative.
SOIL HORIZON CAKE RECIPE
Bedrock (Layer 1): The bedrock layer comprises a continuous mass of strong rocks.
Use violet crumble/crunchie chocolate bars and complete granita biscuits or any other circular biscuit.
Weathered bedrock (Layer 2): Weathered bedrock forms over time as the bedrock is eroded and or altered based external factors.
Use crushed up version of Layer 1.
B-Horizon (Layer 3): The B horizon is commonly referred to as “subsoil” and is highly weathered and strongly coloured layer with an accumulation of clay, iron or aluminium.
Use crushed vanilla madeira cake or other vanilla or light-coloured sponge cake, with lots of colourful lollies such as smarties, m&m’s and jelly beans.
A-Horizon (Layer 4): The A horizon is the top layer of the mineral soil horizons, often referred to as ‘topsoil or ‘biomantle’. This layer contains dark decomposed organic matter, or “humus” and is the zone in which most biological activity occurs.
Use crushed up chocolate cake for soil that is organic rich, bullets for tree roots with various dark coloured chocolate/lollies such as choc sultanas.
O-Horizon (Layer 5): The “O” stands for organic matter. It is a surface layer, dominated by the presence of large amounts of organic matter in varying stages of decomposition. It contains worms and other organisms that break down the organic material.
Use peppermint crisp chocolate bars, cut length ways to represent vegetation, witchetty grub lollies, worm lollies, spearmint leaves and some of the crushed up chocolate cake from Layer 4
Ground Level (Top Layer): The ground level where flora and fauna exists.
Use mushrooms, snakes or spiders type lollies or you can even add some non-edible farm animals!
Alterations: add a layer of Dinosaur lollies beneath Layer 1.
