No-bake dirt cake is the perfect easy Easter dessert

Easter arrives just as bright new flowers and fresh greenery are springing from the earth. So what better time than this holiday to make a delicious and colorful dirt cake?

This pudding cake recipe from Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons requires no baking and features brightly-hued Peeps and pastel M&M’s for a truly cheerful look. You can also make it ahead of time, store it in the fridge and add these decorations right before serving.

MORE: How to make a lamb-shaped cake for Easter

And kids can help! They’ll have fun positioning the bunnies so they look like they’re hopping through dirt. Let their imaginations run wild as they scatter “grass” and M&M’s that they can pretend are Easter eggs.

MORE: These candy-colored ham recipes will brighten up your Easter dinner

To make this cake, you’ll also need Oreos, along with butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk, chocolate pudding mix and Cool Whip. Then it’s simply a matter of mixing ingredients together and folding in the Cool Whip.

You’ll crush the Oreos and place them into a 9-by-13-inch dish as the crust, then add your filling. Chill the dirt cake for two hours. Finally, decorate the top with your Peeps, M&M’s and green edible grass.

Here’s a video from blogger Jill Mills showing exactly how to create this fun Easter dessert:

If you’d like to make this recipe your own, there are ways to customize it to your liking. Try different kinds of sandwich cookies, like Oreo Golden or Oreo Red Velvet. Do you have peanut butter fans in your household? We think Nutter Butter cookies would work well, too!

And if you like coconut, dye it with green food coloring instead of using edible grass. You could also add other kinds of candy for spring, like gummy worms or Cadbury Mini Eggs.

Looking for more easy Easter dessert ideas? Use a deviled egg plate to create easy Jell-O eggs. Or try this no-bake Kool-Aid pie from Incredible Recipes with pretty pastel spring colors. Kraft also offers a recipe for Easter toffee bark that requires just a few ingredients (saltine crackers, sugar, butter, white chocolate and candy) and bakes up in the oven in just minutes.