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Let’s take the Halloween festivities to the next level with this fun Halloween Graveyard Dirt Cake recipe. With its spooky graveyard and marshmallow ghosts, this easy dirt cake recipe is sure to be the talk of the party.

More Halloween? Frankenstein & Bride Brownies, 50 Spooky Fun Halloween Cookies, Gummy Worm Dirt Brownie Cookies and these Halloween Cake Mix Cookies are definitely on the fall dessert menu!

Why We Love To Celebrate Halloween With This Fun Graveyard Dirt Cake

There’s no greater way to celebrate Halloween than enjoying a deliciously halloween dirt cake recipe! Thankfully, it’s easier to make than you might think – and it’s guaranteed to please both kids and adults alike, because who can resist all the goodies involved in this devilish dessert!

This classic Halloween dessert is made with your favorite boxed cake recipe, Oreo cookies, chocolate covered tombstones, gummy worms, candy skulls, bones and eyeballs—all ingredients that make for a delicious and memorable treat.

Not only is dirt cake an easy-to-make delight that your family will love, but it’s also a perfect way to get creative in the kitchen. With a little bit of dirt and a lot of imagination, you can make Halloween dirt cake and really get into the spirit of the season.

Add your own personal touches to make this cake how you want with a baked cake, chocolate frosting, fun candies and cookies you have on hand to make a ‘spook-tacular’ dirt cake your family won’t soon forget. So, if you’re ready to give dirt cake a try, let’s start digging in!

What is a Dirt Cake?

A Dirt Cake is a yummy treat that’s easy to make. It’s normally made with Oreo cookies, whipped cream cheese fluff, and topped with whipped cream (and more Oreos), however we changed it up our own way, with a baked cake, frosting and the spooky extras! Its name comes from the fact that it looks kind of rough and messy – like dirt!

So, if you are wanting the real dirt cake recipe, here’s my Oreo Dirt Pudding Cake recipe you can decorate “graveyard style” instead.

For an extra special touch, gummy worms are often put on top of the dirt cake, but since we’re celebrating Halloween, we added a graveyard scene to make it ghoulishly fun!

Ingredients You Need for Our Halloween Dirt Cake Recipe

1 9×13 cake, baked and cooled, I made a boxed Spice Cake but you could make a Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake mix + ingredients and baked according to instructions.
1 batch of Homemade Brownie Frosting or use 1 or 2 tubs of store-bought Chocolate Frosting, depending how thick you like your frosting
10 Oreos – crushed into crumbles for the graveyard ground
Peep Ghosts
Gummy Worms
Candy Skulls
Eyeballs, Bloody Bones Sprinkle Mix
Cookies to make Tombstone Cookies – Use Nutter Butters, Milano Cookies or Biscoff Cookies and dip in melted white chocolate with some black or brown food coloring swirls and decorate as desired.

Make the Tombstones

Make some tombstones while you bake the cake.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Melt white chocolate melts in microwave in 30 second increments until melted and smooth.
Add a touch of brown food coloring or black food coloring or a mixture of both to your melted white chocolate and dip your cookies into the melted chocolate, giving them a marbled look. Decorate with some skulls, RIP, bones.
Let chocolate set on cookies.

How To Make Halloween Graveyard Dirt Cake

Prepare a 9×13 cake, baked and cooled, I made a boxed Spice Cake but you could make a Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake mix + ingredients and bake cake according to instructions.

Frost the Cake

Once the cake is cooled, frost the cake with a batch of Homemade Brownie Frosting or use 1 or 2 tubs of store-bought Chocolate Frosting, depending how thick you like your frosting. Pipe a border around the cake.

Assemble the Graveyard

Scoop and toss the Oreo cookie crumbs on top to cover the cake to resemble ground cover.
Place the Ghost Peeps where you want on the cake by taking a knife and cutting into the spot where you want to place it and move the knife side to side to make room to gently fit the ghost bottom into the cake.
Press some chocolate covered tombstones into the cake.
Layer on top lots of gummy worms, skull candies, bones, sprinkles. That’s it!

Other Decorating Variations

Other border options? Pipe a different colored frosting around the cake with a fun Halloween color like green, orange or purple! You can also line it with candies, like mini pumpkins, mini peanut butter cups, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, seriously, whatever you want, go all out!

When make the tombstones, if you don’t want to marble the cookies, you could also just make your own light gray or light brown colors using food color gels or use gray colored candy melts as another option.

Besides the gummy worms, skulls, bloody eyeballs and bones and sprinkles I used, there are other options you can use to frighten up your graveyard! Use mini Brach’s candy pumpkins, Peeps also has pumpkins, Frankenstein marshmallows, and as far as gummies? There are gummy eyeballs, gummy spiders and gummy missing body parts.

I’m sure you’ll figure it out! Just have fun with it, because this recipe is already easy, using a boxed cake mix and prepared frosting, unless you want to whip up this really good brownie frosting! You could also use a whipped chocolate frosting, just make sure if it has whipped cream in it, you refrigerate your cake.

Regardless, whatever you do to decorate, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s a whimsical graveyard of sweet deliciousness!

How to Store Chocolate Frosted Dirt Cake

Frosted cakes can last a long time because the frosting acts like a shield. It stops moisture from getting out and stops dirt or other things from getting in. If you frost the cake with buttercream, fondant, or ganache, you can keep it at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Make sure you cover it with something like a cake keeper or a bowl.

Halloween dirt cake in a pan is perfect for parties, potlucks, or just a special treat for the family. Whether you make it with gummy worms, chocolate chips, or something else, this dessert will definitely be a hit.

Halloween dirt cake celebrates the season, and is a way to make the holiday extra special. So dig in and enjoy a little bit of seasonal sweetness!

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More Halloween Party Desserts!