Dirt Cake

• 1 16-oz package Oreo cookies
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
• 1 8-oz block cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 4-serving-size boxes chocolate fudge pudding, instant-type
• 3 cups milk
• 1 12-oz tub whipped topping, thawed
• 1 flower pot (about 8" in diameter or use 2 6" pots)
• 3 large gummy (or plastic) worms
• plastic flowers
• 1 garden trowel (or plastic shovel)

Crush the cookies until they resemble potting soil. Set aside. Cream butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy; set aside. Combine the pudding mix and milk until well blended, then fold in the whipped topping. Gently fold the cream cheese and pudding mixtures together.

To put the cake together, layer flower pot with 1/3 of the cookie crumbs followed by 1/2 the pudding mixture, 1/3 of the crumbs, the rest of the pudding mixture and topping with the remaining cookie crumbs. Refrigerate 10 to 12 hours. About 1/2 hour before serving, remove from refrigerator and decorate with flowers and gummy worms. Serve by digging out portions with the trowel.

Variation: Dirt Cake would be great by itself, but someone on the net came up with a nifty variation. Unfortunately I don't know who, but I wish I had kept the

attribution on this one, cause it's a neat idea. What you do is take your basic dirt cake recipe and modify it in this way: Take another latex glove, fill it up with mashed potatoes and anchor it at the bottom of your flower pot. Fill the dirt cake around it up until just the finger tips are sticking out of the dirt. If you like, you can plunge a knife in the "hand" and add fake blood. I don't know if this one was ever made, so try at your own risk.

• Yields: 10-12 servings
• Preparation Time: 45 minutes, plus chilling time