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Home > Desserts > Dirt Cups

Dirt Cups

Published: Oct 30, 2023

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Halloween dirt cups with text
dirt cups in small bowls with text

Dirt cups are simple and easy-to-make Halloween treats. It’s a layered dessert that has a chocolate pudding layer topped with OREO crumbs and gummy creatures on top.

Halloween dirt pudding cups are a great last-minute treat for a spooky night!

4 cups of chocolate OREO pudding topped with gummy worms
Jump to:
  • Dirt pudding cups
  • Dirt cups ingredients
  • How to make Halloween dirt cups
  • Topping variations
  • Useful tips and tricks
  • Common questions
  • Dirt Cups

Dirt pudding cups

  • Halloween treats to me have to be “creepy” and “cute”. These dirt pudding cups topped with gummy creatures are perfect if you are after not-too-spooky (read gross) treats. And these are great options for last-minute Halloween party treats.
  • Everyone kids and adults alike will love these layered dessert cups. Chocolate pudding layers and OREO crumb on top! It’s so much fun! And did I mention how easy it is to make these treats?!
  • If you are looking for creative and fun treats, not just for Halloween but any party you’ll want to save this dirt cup recipe.
  • It’s easy to customize and create your treats according to the party theme. If your kid wants to have a dinosaur-themed birthday party, make these dirt dessert cups and top them with dinosaur creatures.
  • Looking for easy and creative football or Super bowl themed treats? Layer pudding cups with Oreo crumbs, and pudding mix, and top it with green-colored whipping cream with football-themed cookies on top.

Dirt cups ingredients

The best part about the chocolate pudding dirt cup is it only needs 5 ingredients. You can whip up dozens of these dessert cups in less than 10 minutes with your kids.

You’ll need-

  • Chocolate pudding mix
  • Chilled milk
  • Cool whip
  • OREO cookies
  • And gummy creatures!

All the ingredients’ exact measurements are mentioned in the recipe card below.

ingredients to make chocolate pudding dirt cups

Variations and substitutions for dirt cup recipe

You can use vanilla wafers, vanilla pudding or even cream cheese pudding in place of chocolate pudding.

Adding golden OREO sand (or crumb) is another option to make brownish dirt cake cups.

Gummy candies can be replaces with chocolate (theme colored chocolate melts) cookies like Milano. You can use pretzels sticks too.

To make an adult version of a dirt cup, add in alcohol to the chocolate pudding mix and stir in alcohol. The best options would be baileys, Kahlua, Amaretto, or even Grand Marnier.

How to make Halloween dirt cups

Mix chocolate pudding mix with chilled milk. Stir in cool whip. Crumble OREO cookies. And start layering!

The creative options are endless. Use your creativity. You can keep it adorable with gummy worms or make it a scary graveyard with scary Halloween candies. The choice is yours!

To make it easy, use store-bought pudding mix(JELLO-O mix is great) and Cool Whip. If you have time, feel free to make your chocolate pudding mix and use homemade whipping cream instead of cool whipped.

Beat heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar in a hand blender until stiff peaks form will hardly take 5 minutes.

Thaw frozen cool whip in refrigerator previous night.

STEP 1: Beat pudding mix with chilled milk until combined.  

step 2 add cold milk to pudding mix
beat milk and pudding mix

STEP 2: Fold cool whip into pudding. You can also use whipped cream instead of Cool Whip.

fold in cool whip to chocolate pudding
fold in cool whip to chocolate pudding

STEP 3: Crumble OREO cookies in a food processor. You can also place cookies in zip-lock bags and run a rolling pin over them to crumble them.

crumble OREO cookies in food processor
crumbled OREO cookies

Step 4: Start assembling the dessert cups. Into pudding cups, add chocolate pudding.

chocolate pudding added in to pudding cups

STEP 5: Top it with OREO crumbs. You can make one layer of each or make multiple layers of pudding and cookie crumbs, up to you.

cookie crumb topped over pudding mix into pudding cups

Step 6: Finally, top it with gummy candies.

gummy worms in dirt cups

These pudding cups are best served chilled.

Topping variations

Gummy candy – All and any gummy candies can be used. Gummy bears, gummy worms, crocodile-shaped gummies, Swedish fish.

Cookies – Milano cookies dipped in the black chocolate melt to resemble graveyard stones.

Animal shaped crackers.

Peanuts butter cups crumbled.

Toffees and candy confetti.

You can get as creative as you want.

OREO chocolate pudding dirt cups in 4 small pudding glasses with gummy worms on top

Useful tips and tricks

  1. Crush OREO cookies in a food processor if you want to find a dirt pudding layer. You can also crush OREO in the zip-lock bag using a rolling pin.
  2. If you plan to make chocolate pudding cups ahead of time, be sure to add the cookie crumb just before serving. Once assembled cookie crumbs will soften and leaving them in the refrigerator for a longer time (days) will tend to make the crumb soggy and gummies will harden.

Common questions

Can I make dirt pudding cups ahead?

The pudding cups are great for making ahead desserts.
But be sure to add the cookie crumb just before serving. Once assembled cookie crumbs will soften. Don’t add cookie crumbs until ready to serve. Keep your cookie crumbs in zip lock bags at room temperature.
When ready to serve, sprinkle cookie crumbs on top of the chilled pudding, top with Halloween candies, and serve.

How to make OREO crumbs if I don’t have food processor?

Using a rolling pin or pestle of mortar smack OREO in the packet. You can also transfer OREO cookies in the zip-lock bag and crush them using a rolling pin.

Can I use whipped cream instead of Cool Whip?

Yes, you can.

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4 cups of chocolate OREO pudding topped with gummy worms
5 from 9 votes

Dirt Cups

Jyothi Rajesh
Dirt cups are amazingly easy to make and adorable layered desserts which has chocolate pudding layer topped with OREO crumbs and gummy creatures on top.
Prevent your screen from going dark
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Prep Time 5 minutes mins
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 4 servings
Calories 425

Ingredients
  

  • 1 pack 3.9oz Jello-O Chocolate Pudding Mix
  • 2 cups cold milk measure milk as per packet instructions
  • ½ cup cool whip
  • 15 OREO cookies crushed (about 1 ½ cups to be divided)
  • 12 Gummy worms

Instructions
 

  • Thaw frozen cool whip in refrigerator previous night(if frozen).
  • Beat pudding mix with chilled milk until combined.
  • Fold in cool whip into pudding.
  • Crumble OREO cookies in food processor. Alternatively you can also place cookies in zip lock bags and run rolling pin over it to crumble.
  • Now start assembling the dessert cups.
  • Into pudding cups, add chocolate pudding.
  • Then layer it with OREO crumbs.
  • You can make one layer of each or make multiple layers of pudding and cookie crumb, up to you.
  • Finally top it with gummy candies.
  • These pudding cups are best served chilled.

Video

Notes

  1. Use store-bought pudding mix(JELLO-O mix is great) and store-bought Cool Whip to make it quick. To make it from scratch feel free to make your chocolate pudding mix and use whipped cream instead of Cool Whip.
  2. Crush OREO cookies in a food processor if you want to find a dirt pudding layer. You can also crush OREO in the zip-lock bag using a rolling pin.
  3. If you plan to make chocolate pudding cups ahead of time, be sure to add the cookie crumb just before serving. Once assembled cookie crumbs will soften and leaving them in the refrigerator for a longer time (days) will tend to make the crumbs soggy and gummies will harden.
 
Nutritional Info – Please keep in mind that the nutritional information provided is only a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on the products used.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 425kcalCarbohydrates: 68gProtein: 10gFat: 13gSaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 14mgSodium: 279mgPotassium: 284mgFiber: 1gSugar: 40gVitamin A: 214IUCalcium: 158mgIron: 4mg
Did you make this recipe?Follow @CurryTrail and tag #CurryTrail to share your creation!

Created by Jyothi Rajesh

Thank you for stopping by.

Jyothi Rajesh is the founder of the food blog, Curry Trail. She lives in Bangalore, India and is the mom of two beautiful kids. Her passion is creating and sharing delicious and easy recipes for the home cook. She’s been blogging since 2007 and many of her recipes have appeared in both online and print publications over the years. Learn more about Jyothi Rajesh.

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    5 from 9 votes

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    Comments & Reviews

  1. Natalie says

    October 29, 2019 at 11:33 pm

    5 stars
    What a lovely and fun idea. My kids will love this one. Maybe they can help me make these. What a fun indeed.

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      November 02, 2019 at 8:30 pm

      Thank you

      Reply
  2. Amy says

    October 28, 2019 at 9:58 am

    5 stars
    What a fun treat! My kids are going g to love this! I love how creamy the pudding looks too. Thanks for the recipe I’m going to make it this Halloween!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 28, 2019 at 4:27 pm

      thank you Amy

      Reply
  3. Sara says

    October 28, 2019 at 6:59 am

    5 stars
    I am absolutely crazy about these! It’s so easy to make, it’s so perfect and reminds me of my favorite treat as a kid! There’s something about the chocolate pudding mix and whipped topping that makes a delicious, light texture that goes down way too easily. Thank you for such a great recipe!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 28, 2019 at 4:28 pm

      You are right Sara, pudding cups are absolute delight to eat.

      Reply
  4. Kate says

    October 28, 2019 at 6:22 am

    5 stars
    Wow this really brings me back, I remember having something like this when I was a kid. But I’ve never actually made this recipe myself! Now that I have kids of my own I’m going to have to make this recipe for them, I know they will love it!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 28, 2019 at 4:28 pm

      Thank you Kate

      Reply
  5. Leanne says

    October 28, 2019 at 4:35 am

    5 stars
    I make a version of these for Easter/Spring gatherings that use bunny shaped marshmallow peeps and gummy carrots. I really need to make these for Halloween later this week. My nephews would love them with those gummy worms!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 28, 2019 at 4:31 pm

      Thank you

      Reply
  6. Paula Montenegro says

    October 27, 2019 at 3:12 am

    5 stars
    They look delicious in spite of the worms, haha! Easy and everyday ingredients make this recipe a perfect one for this Halloween. And having individual servings is super convenient.

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm

      Thank you Paula

      Reply
  7. Shelley says

    October 26, 2019 at 10:38 pm

    These really are adorable, and dirt cups are always such a hit! But what I especially loved were your ideas on how to customize these so you can enjoy them any time of year – not just at Halloween! Dinosaur birthday parties and football parties – those are such great ideas!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm

      Thank you

      Reply
  8. Candice says

    October 25, 2019 at 11:51 pm

    5 stars
    These are adorable! Made them for my friends kiddos, and they thought they were the cutest, too. Such a great idea. Will be making them all month!

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm

      Glad you liked it Candice

      Reply
  9. Marisa F. Stewart says

    October 25, 2019 at 12:54 am

    5 stars
    What an adorable idea. My youngest grandson would love these dirt cups. This is the first Halloween I’ll be with him and I’m making these cups as a surprise. I’m going to have to go out and find a gummy worm.

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 25, 2019 at 7:48 am

      Glad you liked it Marisa

      Reply
  10. Patti says

    October 24, 2019 at 7:48 pm

    5 stars
    This is one of my family’s traditional Halloween desserts which we serve after we come home from Trick or Treating. We usually throw it into a 9X13 pan and decorate it with cookies to make a graveyard, but I really like the idea of having it in cups instead. Cups create some portion control, and it makes it so much easier to serve because each person can just grab their own. Great idea.

    Reply
    • jyothirajesh says

      October 25, 2019 at 7:48 am

      Thank you Patti

      Reply

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Jyothi - Author of Curry Trail.

Welcome, I'm Jyothi

My food philosophy is simple, fresh and full of flavors! I love ‘spicy’ food. In fact so much so that I can skip dessert for extra spicy savory food!

More About Me
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