This Easter Dirt Cake Is Made For Celebrating

If you're the kind of person who goes big on holidays, chances are you love making festive seasonally appropriate recipes. Easter celebrations tend to be all about bright colors, candy, and cute animals, so it's only fitting that your dessert should conjure up all the joy of an early morning Easter egg hunt. Daily Meal recipe developer Kate Shungu shares this celebration Easter dirt cake recipe that will bring more than a touch of joy to the occasion. Whether you're planning brunch or a traditional Easter dinner, this sweet treat will appeal to guests of all ages. 

Much like a classic dirt cake, this recipe incorporates crushed Oreos, but a layer of coconutty creaminess and a few bright pops of color make it stand out. "We are big Oreo fans at my house, and this was a smash hit with my family," Shungu raves and adds, "Coconut lovers especially will enjoy this rendition with both coconut cream flavored pudding and shredded coconut on top." Let the kids help you garnish this dazzling dish with their favorite Easter candy, like Peeps and Mini Eggs, and this dessert is as easy and fun to make as it is to eat.

For this recipe, you'll need a pack of Oreos, butter (softened), cream cheese (softened), powdered sugar, milk, coconut cream instant pudding, and whipped topping. Then, get shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened), green food coloring, and assorted Easter candy such as Peeps, egg-shaped chocolates, etc. 

Place the Oreos in a food processor and pulse until fine crumbs form.

Pour half the Oreos into a 13x9-inch baking dish.

Place the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar in a large bowl. Mix with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.

In another large bowl, whisk the milk and instant pudding until smooth.

Fold the whipped topping into the pudding mixture.

Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding/whipped topping mixture, and fold until combined.

Spread the mixture over the Oreos.

Top with the remaining Oreos.

Place the coconut and food coloring in a large resealable bag. Toss gently to combine.

Sprinkle the dyed coconut over the Oreos.

Top with the assorted Easter candy.

Serve right away or refrigerate until ready to serve.

This charming celebration Easter cake packs plenty of creaminess and oodles of chocolate and coconut goodness, but it also acts as a wonderful blank canvas for festive creativity. To start, Shungu recommends, "Use any flavor of instant pudding and Oreos that you like." Instead of coconut and classic Oreos, she suggests fun flavor combos like Peanut butter-flavored Oreos with banana cream pudding, red velvet Oreos with cheesecake-flavored pudding, or mint Oreos with chocolate pudding.

While the Peeps and Mini Eggs really place this dessert in Easter territory, you can play around with the garnishes depending on the time of year. "You can decorate the cake for different holidays using different candy and treats such as Mellowcreme pumpkins for Halloween, snowman Peeps for winter, or even fresh berries to create a flag cake for the 4th of July (use Golden Oreos for that one)," Shungu suggests. Of course, you'll want to switch up the food dye for the shredded coconut too — or you can skip it altogether to keep things simple. 

Whether you don't have a food processor or don't feel like having to plug it in and clean it, Shungu suggests a few other methods to crush the Oreos into a crumbly consistency. "You can use a high-speed blender (such as Vitamix) to crush Oreos, she says, in case you've decided that between a food processor and a blender, you'd rather have the latter. 

You can also try what she calls "the old-fashioned way." Place the Oreos in a resealable freezer bag and smash them." You can certainly get creative when figuring out how to crush the cookies, but Shungu offers a few easy options. "To smash the cookies, you can use a rolling pin, a tin can, or a meat mallet." And if you're not quite in the mood to let out some rage on a bag of cookies, she notes, "You can also use a knife to cut the Oreos into very fine pieces."