A chocolate pudding cake covered in Oreos makes Easter even sweeter! Easter Dirt Cake garnished with pastel M&Ms is an easy, no bake dessert that has everyone hopping back for seconds.
Do you love Dirt Cake as much as we do? I changed up my original recipe to make Halloween Dirt Cake first. Now I’m adapting it for Easter!
Why You Need to Try this Easter Dirt Cake
If you’re not familiar with dirt cake–don’t let the name turn you off. There’s nothing dirty about it!
Dirt Cake is made by combining instant pudding mix with cool whip. The mousse like mixture is topped with lots of crushed oreos. (That’s the “dirt” part.)
My original dirt cake recipe includes gummy worms to really sell the concept! I love changing up the garnishes so I can make dirt cake for any occasion.
This Easter Dirt Cake recipe swaps out the gummis for colorful Easter candy. Peeps make an adorable topping for the pudding cake while adding lots of marshmallow deliciousness.
It’s time to celebrate the arrival of spring. Why not channel your inner child and enjoy a dessert made from chocolate pudding?
Adults love this dirt pudding cake as much as kids do!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Instant Pudding Mix. I used chocolate but vanilla is tasty too!
- Cool Whip. Plain or chocolate flavored. Use our recipe for stabilized whipped cream if desired.
- Pastel M&Ms. If you can’t find pastel colored M&Ms, regular M&Ms are fine (but won’t look as “Easter-y”). You could swap for cadbury chocolate eggs or Hershey chocolate eggs.
- Cream cheese. Let it soften to room temperature before using so it’s easier to blend.
- Marshmallow Peeps. I used bunny shaped peeps. Feel free to mix and match your favorite shapes!
How to Make Easter Dirt Dessert
I assemble my dirt cake in a glass 9 x 13 baking dish for easy serving.
- Make the Filling. First, you’ll combine cream cheese, butter, pudding and cool whip to make a creamy filling.
- Layer with Crushed Oreos. Then, place half your Oreo cookie crumbs on the bottom of the pan. Top with the filling mixture, then add the rest of the crumbs on top.
- Refrigerate. Let the dirt cake chill for at least two hours.
- Decorate. Garnish the cake with M&Ms and marshmallow peeps just before serving.
You can also assemble this in a trifle bowl if desired! Make alternating layers of cool whip and Oreos to fill the bowl. Easter dirt cake looks especially beautiful this way.
Dirt Cake Recipes
- Halloween Dirt Cake– topped with candy corn (pumpkins) and Nutter Butter tombstones.
- Chocolate Dirt Cake– just a classic pudding cake.
- Gummi Worm Dirt Cake– made with vanilla pudding mix!
Easy Dessert Recipes
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Easter Dirt Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 package Oreo cookies, crushed (with filling) 15.5 ounce
- ¼ cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 package cream cheese, softened 8 ounce
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 2 ¾ cup milk any variety
- 2 boxes instant chocolate pudding mix 3.4 ounce each
- 12 ounce Cool Whip thawed
- 1 cup pastel M&M’s for garnish
- 20 PEEP marshmallows for garnish
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar until fluffy. Set aside.
- In a bowl, whisk together the milk with instant pudding, until no clumps appear.
- Pour pudding mix into cream cheese mixture. Beat until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Fold in Cool Whip.
- Arrange in a 13×9 dish by ppressing half the Oreos on bottom, topped with the filling and then topped with the remaining oreos.
- Refrigerate for at least 2 hours until set. When ready to serve, sprinkle top of cake with M&M’s candy and add one PEEP to each slice of cake.
Notes
- Can also be made with instant vanilla pudding if desired.
- Serve it in a Trifle Bowl by pouring half of the filling in the bowl, topped with half of the Oreos. Repeat layers.
Nutrition
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The ultimate dirt cake for Easter or any spring time celebration! You’ll love the creamy whipped filling surrounded by crunchy Oreo layers. Best of all, you don’t even have to touch the oven!
A family size pack of oreos is 1 lb 2.71 oz, so a total of 18.71 oz since a lb is 16 oz. It’s very weird the way they write it out on the package. The recipe calls for 15.5 oz, so you can use a little less than the family size pack if you want (with approximately 3 oz left over). Hope that helps!
I’m confused by the amount of Oreos to add. In the recipe listed above, it says one package of Oreos 15.5 oz. A family size package of Oreos is 2.12 oz. Does anyone know the correct amount? I have to assume it’s one family size package 2.12 oz.
A family size pack of oreos is 1 lb 2.71 oz, so a total of 18.71 oz since a lb is 16 oz. It’s very weird the way they write it out on the package. The recipe calls for 15.5 oz, so you can use a little less than the family size pack if you want (with approximately 3 oz left over). Hope that helps!
would this recipe be enough for 2 regular sized round pies?
You’ll need a dish deeper than a pie plate for this treat.
Freeze it! Delicious and not runny. Wish I had figured this out for Easter. Pretty embarrassing plating a runny ‘cake’ that looked horrible when served. I froze the remainder and now it cuts perfectly and is still soft enough to get a spoon through.
Do you add the butter to the crushed Oreos that go on the bottom? I don’t see where it says to do something with the butter but I could just be overlooking it. Thank you! 🙂
The softened butter gets mixed with the softened cream cheese. But, Im making this today and I plan on melting a bit of butter to mix with the oreos on the bottom.
I made orange colored chocolate carrots and green color chocolate, and added candy flowers to some of the chocolate grass and peep bunnies, took it to a church Easter luncheon , it was very popular many photos were taken.
I made this and brought it into work. I was delicious but definitely wasn’t able to cut in to it like a piece of cake. Not sure what I did differently!
I made this for Easter this year. Mine turned out like yours, I think. It was runny after 4 hours in the fridge and never reached the consistency like in the picture. I followed the recipe exactly. Not sure what happened.
I had the same issue. Tasted good but was runny.
I’m going to bring this Easter my granddaughter will love this ♥️
I made this but it wasn’t setting in the fridge so I left it in the freezer until it was time to eat, and it made ice cream cake! So yummy and was a huge hit!
Hey Aimee! I love this idea for Easter. I thought you might like to know I included it in a roundup of all the desserts I’d like to make for Easter this year!
https://sugarsaltgrace.com/every-easter-dessert-you-need-to-make/
Such a fun, easy and delicious Easter dessert! LOVE it!
My kids loved this cake! HUGE hit! Love that you have so many fun & festive versions of this delicious dessert! I’m going to pin this so I can come back over & over and make is for every holiday! Wonder how to dress it up for Independence Day…hmmm….
Absolutely adorable and so creative! Such a beautiful cake!
So festive and so delicious! My family is going to be all over this cake especially my teens! Can’t wait to make this!