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Dirt Cake decorated with bunny Peeps, candy eggs and coconut colored green for grass
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Dirt Cake

Dirt Cake is a fun dessert to serve up on Halloween, Easter or any other holiday for kids and adults. It is a quick and easy no bake recipe that is so tasty!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword no bake dessert, dirt cake, Halloween dessert, Easter dessert
Prep Time 30 minutes
Decorating the dirt cake 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 12
Author Jeannie Z

Ingredients

  • 2 packages vanilla instant pudding (3.4 ounce boxes)
  • 4 cups cold milk
  • 1 8 oz Cool Whip container (thawed)
  • 1 package chocolate sandwich cookies like Oreo's, crushed (15 ounce package)

Decoration suggestions for Halloween Dirt Cake

  • candy pumpkins
  • square or rectangular cookies for tombstones

To make candy skeleton

  • ½ cup white chocolate chips

Decoration suggestions for Easter Dirt Cake

  • Peeps (bunnies work great)
  • candy eggs (I used M&M's)
  • M&M candy
  • 1 cup shredded coconut
  • green food coloring

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, combine the vanilla instant pudding and cold milk. Whisk for two minutes. Let it sit for five minutes. 
  • While pudding sets, crush up the cookies in a blender until they are very fine crumbs.  Set them aside.
  • Add the thawed Cool Whip to the pudding and gently combine ingredients.
  • Scoop the pudding mixture into a 13x9 pan (or similar size pan) and spread out evenly.
  • Sprinkle the crushed cookies over the pudding.
  • Decorate the cake. Just place everything gently on top of the dirt cake.
  • Keep chilled in the refrigerator until you will be serving it.

To Make the Skeleton

  • Place white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Place them in the microwave and heat them on high for 30 seconds. Stir and if needed heat for additional 15 second increments, stirring after each one until the white chocolate is melted and creamy.
  • Using a spoon, carefully drizzle the melted white chocolate into a skeleton candy mold. ( I have a link to the one I used in my written post above.)
  • Once you have all the sections of the candy mold filled, place it in your refrigerator to set, about 30 minutes. When it is fully set, the candy will pop out easily.
  • Place the skeleton pieces gently on the dirt cake by laying them down on top of the cake or having them stick out of the "dirt".

To Make the Green Grass:

  • Combine the shredded coconut and 4-5 drops of green food coloring in a bowl. Mix together with a spoon until all the coconut is green. Add more food coloring if needed.

Notes

  • It helps to get the decorations ready ahead of time If you are making the skeleton for Halloween, you need to do that ahead of time since it takes about 30 minutes to set.  
  • When making the candy skeleton, put a small amount of the melted white chocolate chips on your spoon for the smaller sections.  This helps to get the melted white chocolate into the small areas on the candy mold.
  • Use a blender to crush up the cookies into crumbs for best results. If you don't have a blender, then place the cookies into a large sealed bag and roll over the cookies with a rolling pin.
  • Make sure to place any leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days.