Cat Lovers Cake

If you want to make a real cake for a cat lover, with a good sense of humor, this will do the trick. Not only does it look frighteningly realistic (without any actual litter or litter box contents, of course), it also tastes wonderful.

Ingredients
• 1 spice or German chocolate cake mix
• 1 white cake mix
• 1 large pkg vanilla instant pudding mix
• 1 pkg vanilla sandwich cookies
• Green food coloring
• 12 small Tootsie Rolls
• New, cleaned litter box
• New, cleaned litter scooper

Steps
1. Prepare the cake mix according to the directions on the box. Use any size pan. Allow the cake to cool to room temperature.
2. Prepare the pudding mix and put it in the refrigerator for now.
3. Crumble the white sandwich cookies in small batches in a food processor (scrape often to get every little piece) or by hand. Set aside all but about 1/4 cup.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of cookie crumbs and add a few drops of green food coloring to it. Mix with a fork or shake everything in a jar.
5. Crumble the room temperature cake into a large bowl. Toss it gently with half of the remaining white cookie crumbs and enough chilled pudding to moisten (not soak) the crumbs.
6. Put the cookie crumbs and pudding mixture into a brand new, clean litter box.
7. Heat three unwrapped Tootsie rolls in a microwave safe dish and until they're soft and pliable. Pinch the ends so they are no longer blunt--you want them to look convincingly like what cats put in the litter box, right? Repeat this process with as many Tootsie rolls as you'd like to add, microwaving them in batches of three.
8. Bury the shaped Tootsie rolls in mixture and sprinkle them with the other half of the cookie crumbs.
9. Scatter the green cookie crumbs lightly over the top. This will mimic real litter, where many of the grains are often blue or green.
10. Shape 3 more Tootsie rolls and scrape them on top of the cake. One can hang over the side of the litter box. Sprinkle them lightly with cookie crumbs.
11. Place the box on a newspaper and sprinkle a few of the cookie crumbs around. Serve with a brand new, cleaned litter scooper for that extra touch!

Warnings
• Don't use a used litterbox or scooper, even if you scrub it down with bleach and soap--your guests might get sick. It's also pretty disgusting.
• Keep your cat/dog away from the cake. They might try to eat it and could get sick from the Tootsie rolls. They probably won't mistake it for a real litter box, but it's better to be safe than sorry in this case!
• Although it looks fun, using a real kitty litter scoop and cat box is not a good idea. Food grade plastic is different than other plastics and while it sometimes is the same it doesn't have to be. Plasticizers that are not meant for ingestion can leak into the cake. Perhaps you could use a colorful cake pan instead.
• If you want to preserve the look of using a real litter box, but are worried about the plastic, it couldn't hurt to line the inside of the litter box with plastic wrap, and just lean the scoop against the side as a decoration.