This week, dear reader, let me bring you back to elementary school science class. And I’m not talking about Bill Nye people. I’m talking about dirt. Eating dirt. Okay, you’re thinking kindergarten; I’m talking about 4th and 5th grade. When I say edible dirt I’m talking about that pudding/oreo/gummy worm stuff. Nostalgia? Yeah, I know. It made my day when I found out my roommate Evan’s mom has been making him dirt for his birthday every year since he can remember. I had to have that recipe. It was a special birthday tradition, he explained. Well this is now a special Max tradition. I have to make dirt, the 10-year-old within me cried.

He said he’d email his mom and I went to bed with a head full of yummy, gummy, creamy, dirty delight. The next day I had the recipe and after a painless trip to HT, I had the supplies. It was finally ready to time travel back to those carefree days on the playground – when I was too old for matching sailor outfits and too young for awkward middle school handholding. Ahhhh, to be 10 again.

The process was pretty simple. I ran into a few problems with blending the cream cheese, powdered sugar and margarine without an electronic mixer. Instead, we passed the bowl around the room and all whipped to our hearts delight. After a go around my circle of friends we had it looking pretty creamy (as the directions instructed). As I mixed in an entire carton of cool whip, a whole package of pudding and a whole extended family of gummy worms to the already cholesterol-laden concoction, I couldn’t help but think how worth it this death trap was going to be. I knew that when these separately unhealthy ingredients were combined they would compose a tasty symphony nothing short of the Mozart of nutrition.*

Grinding the Oreos into dust proved an interesting endeavor. We first attempted to mill the entire bag at once, but our poor blender screamed in agony. A better technique was to take it a few cookies at a time and eventually we had a toxic-looking pile of Oreo dirt (yellow-cream filled springtime Oreos = badass radioactive dirt). All we had to do next was alternately layer the healthy cake-filling and the Oreo dirt, throw a couple gummy worms on top and BAM – hello dessert (t’s educational and delicious)!

Need I say that the dirt was a hit? Aside from the couple of bite-sized chunks of pure butter our mixing failed to disperse, the cake was flawless. Audible moans of tasty pleasure filled the halls of the apartment.

The dirt was complete success; it is cheap, quick and easy to make, great to eat, and you won’t experience the harmful side effects on your heart until much later in life (and you’ll probably just attribute them to a stressful work environment instead of a delicious college dessert anyway). I was transported back to the perfect innocence of elementary school science class, if only for one night. Oh dirt cake, I just wish we had more time. Why god, why don’t we have more time.

*Disclaimer: Dirt cake is not healthy in any way.

Dirt

1 package Oreos

1 8oz carton cream cheese

1 12oz carton Cool Whip

stick margarine

1 box vanilla instant pudding

1 cup powdered sugar

cup milk

Gummy Worms

Mix cream cheese, margarine and powdered sugar until creamy. Set aside.

In another bowl, mix pudding, milk and cool whip. Add to cream cheese mixture.

In food processor, chop cookies fine.

Layer cookies, cake, cookies, cake, etc. Top layer should be cookies. Place gummy worms around pot.