There was a time in my life when I insisted that anything that left my kitchen had to be made completely from scratch. That was before I became a mom. Now I identify all too well with the protagonist in Allison Pearson's book "I Don't Know How She Does It," who can be found in the first chapter of the book dressing store-bought mince pies to make them look homemade.

Now, though I gleefully giggle when Anthony Bourdain mercilessly mocks Sandra Lee and her "Semi-Homemade Cooking," I, too, am guilty of taking shortcuts when I'm in a hurry. I don't feel too bad about it, though. Even our own Peggy Lampman has posted instructions on how to "enhance" frozen pizza.

This past weekend, as I prepared to make cupcakes to celebrate a co-worker's birthday, I faced a conundrum. I had a very limited amount of time to work with. I could make my "famous" chocolate sour cream cake in cupcake form, carefully measuring the flour, sugar, vanilla and baking powder, and chopping up and then melting the unsweetened chocolate blocks. Or I could let my buddy Betty Crocker do the heavy lifting and have some time left over to decorate the cupcakes. Summoning my inner Sandra Lee, I headed to the store for some cake mix.

As it turns out, cake from a mix isn't so bad, especially if you replace the oil with applesauce. I filled my muffin cups, added some Callebaut chocolate chips to each cup to give the cupcakes a more chocolatey flavor, stuck the cupcakes in the oven, and got to down to the business of figuring out how to decorate them.

My baked goods have always tasted better than they looked, so I decided to embrace that concept fully and go with a design that is supposed to look like a mess. Besides, I could never compete with my fellow community team member Jen Eyer's gorgeous (and very girly) pink marshmallow cupcakes.

Ingredients
1 box of your favorite cake mix
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 16-ounce package of "chocolate creme" Oreos (I use Newman's Own)
6 4-ounce Jello chocolate pudding snack cups

Other materials:
3-inch terra-cotta* flower pots, washed and dried
Gummi worms

Directions
1. Make the cake mix according to the directions. You can replace the oil in the recipe with an equal amount of applesauce. Pour the batter into 24 muffin cups, filling each cup two-thirds full. Add 3 or 4 chocolate chips to each cup. Bake according to the instructions, and set aside to cool.

2. In a blender or food processor, mix all the pudding and 2/3 of the Oreos and set aside.

3. Pulse the remaining third of the Oreos in a food processor or blender until it is finely chopped and resembles dirt, and set aside.

4. After the cupcakes have cooled, place them in the terra-cotta pots. They should sit just a half-inch below the rim of the pot. Top the cupcakes first with the pudding-Oreo mixture and then with the crushed Oreos.

5. Cut the gummi worms in half, and arrange two halves in each pot with the cut sides in the pudding to make it appear that the worms are in the dirt.

* To save money on materials, I only used a half-dozen terra-cotta pots for the display cupcakes, and served the rest in regular muffin cups.

Jessica Webster leads the Food & Drink section for the AnnArbor.com community team. You can reach her at JessicaWebster@AnnArbor.com.