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This spooky Graveyard dirt cake is EASY, festive and perfect for Halloween! It can be on the table in 10 minutes!!
Everyone (especially the kids) loves this simple Halloween Dirt Cake for all the holiday festivities. We also like to make our Pumpkin Magic Cake and Spider Cake.
a halloween favorite
Earlier today I shared with you another family favorite recipe called Kansas City Dirt Cake.
It’s such a family favorite with its Oreo cookie crumbs, so I decided to make a different version of this cake that was jazzed up a bit for Halloween. I loved it so much and wanted to share it with you today.
Not only is it an easy and yummy cake but it’s one of those desserts that looks like you spent hours on it and really didn’t. It just looks that good!! Fun and festive, right?!
This Halloween dirt cake is definitely a family favorite!
How to make Halloween Dirt Cake
Everyone loves this Halloween Dirt Cake recipe that tastes so delicious and simple to make for any Halloween party.
OREO. Crush ⅔ package of Oreo cookies and place in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Set aside.
FILLING. In a large bowl, mix cream cheese and margarine (or butter) until smooth with a hand mixer. Mix in powdered sugar and fold in whipped topping. Set aside.
PUDDING. In a separate bowl whisk together the instant pudding, milk and vanilla. Fold this mixture in with the cream cheese mixture.
ASSEMBLE + DECORATE. Pour and layer over the crumb mixture. Sprinkle with the reserved crushed Oreos. Add cookies and candy pumpkins to the top. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Recipe Tips
For super fine Oreo crumbs you should put the Oreos in a blender or in a food processor (you can also put in a Ziploc bag and crush with a rolling pin).
This “cake” is more like a delicious pudding and does not have a traditional cake texture.
Use the pudding mix only. Do NOT make the pudding first. Also, be sure that the pudding mix is the INSTANT kind.
To serve, slice/scoop this into individual servings or you can use the tombstone cookies to scoop the cake out like a dessert dip. Do whatever feels right!
While it is not required, letting the cake set up in the fridge for an hour or so would make it easier to slice and serve.
Variations
Any rectangular shaped cookie will work for the tombstones such as:
- Keebler Deluxe Grahams
- Chocolate Wafer cookies broken in half
- Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
- Milano Cookies
- Use chocolate graham crackers for the tombstones
- Use chocolate covered nutter butters
Dessert Variations – Change it up:
- Making a white chocolate skeleton out of molds to lay on top of the cake
- Use traditional instant chocolate pudding mix
- Make a gate out of piped chocolate
- Top with creepy gummy worms, ghost peeps or candy bones.
- Make a graveyard dirt cups version in individual clear plastic cups.
Storing Info
STORE this cake covered in the fridge for up to a week.
To FREEZE this cake you will want to remove any toppings and cover the cake tightly in plastic wrap and keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
This would be the perfect Halloween dessert that is festive and yummy!!
For some more yummy Halloween recipes:
- Blackout Candy Apples
- Healthy Halloween Snacks
- Halloween Puppy Chow
- Halloween Cookies in a Jar
- Monster Rice Krispie Treats
- Strawberry Ghosts
- Gooey Monster Cookies
Halloween Dirt Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 package Oreos
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 16 oz cool whip
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 6.6 oz instant white chocolate or vanilla pudding
- 3 cups milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 package Mother's Double Fudge Cookies
- candy corn pumpkins
Instructions
- Crush ⅔ package of Oreos and place in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Set aside.
- Mix cream cheese and margarine (or butter) until smooth. Mix in powdered sugar and fold in whipped topping. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl mix pudding, milk and vanilla. Fold this mixture in with the cream cheese mixture.
- Pour over crumb mixture.
- Sprinkle with the reserved Oreos.
- Add cookies and pumpkins to the top. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
hi! a big bin of cool whip appears on the ingredients list but not the recipe…did i miss something? thanks!
It’s in step 2 🙂 Enjoy!!
Hi! I know this post is very old, but I tried to make this cake recently and it didn’t go very well. The taste was great but the cake didn’t curdle. What can I do? What do you think the problem is? Thank you!
It’s hard to know exactly what you did. It isn’t supposed to curdle. The consistency is more like pudding with the oreos on top & bottom. Did you change anything in the recipe?
This looks fantastic! Not sure I’ll be able to find mallow pumpikns but I’m sure I’ll be able to find another candy alternative. Thanks for the great idea.
Hey! I made this cake last weekend for our sleepover and blogged about it. You can follow the link below to see.
Ya, this looks awesome!
These are so much fun to play with! When one of my nephews was in drum corp, they would have a party before the championship, and it fell right around Halloween every year, so I would make Halloween goodies, a version of this being one of them. I would ice the names of their rival teams onto the tombstones, etc. One year, I found a candy skeleton at the Dollar Tree, so I grabbed that and dug out a “grave” in the cake in front of one of the “stones,” piled some cake crumbs at the foot of the hole like a dirt pile and had the skeleton crawling out LOL.