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This easy beach themed dessert is a twist on the nostalgic and classic dirt cups dessert. Sand cups area fun way to celebrate a luau, beach-themed party or even to enoy during shark week!
All you need for the recipe is about 25-30 minutes and a few simple and fun ingredients. You can customize it with all kinds of candies and switch up the ‘sand’ or ‘ocean’ flavors too. I like to serve them in individual 9oz cups, but you could use different sizes or glass options as well. You could also make one batch all together in a pan for a fun twist on this dirt cake, whatever works best for you is great!
Why Kids Love Pudding Cups
Just like with dirt cups, sand cups are a fun twist on serving pudding. It makes it fun when food ties to a theme or that they can get creative with. Plan this dessert for an indoor beach party accompanied with sunnies and inflatable beach balls.
Ingredients
- Vanilla instant pudding
- teddy graham bears
- Golden Oreos (or vanilla wafers for a finer sand)
- Candies- gummy lifesavers, licorice pieces and gummy sharks
You can customize this a lot of different ways! If you want the water to be more transparent or to have a different taste you can use blue jello. You can also swap out the candies for your kiddo’s favorites!
Directions
Make your instant pudding by combining milk and the packet and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Combine with cool whip. After combining allow to chill in the refrigerator. This is an optional step but helps the consistency set up!
While your pudding is chilling, crush up your oreos or vanilla wafers. I do this by adding to a ziploc gallon baggie and crushing with a rolling pin.
Add your blue food coloring. Add a few drops at a time until you reach your desired shade of blue. I recommend gel food coloring.
Begin adding your pudding layers to the bottom of a cup. I alternate pudding and oreo crumbs.
Add a layer of crushed up oreos, then top with pudding again. For the top layer of crumbs to create a beach effect I only put crumbs on half of the cup.
To make your floating teddy graham bears, add a gummy life saver around it about halfway. Then add the bear to the top of the blue pudding as if it’s floating in the water.
Add any other details, like the gummy sharsk or bear lounging on the twizzler pool float or beach towel. You could use all kinds of candies for this part to create a fun beach scene!
Tips or Question
To make sand cups you don’t have to follow one specific formula. You could use instant pudding or blue jello, or even keep the vanilla pudding plain without any food coloring to make it just a simpler sand cup without trying to re-create the water look. This would be so fun for a beach themed party, a pool party or even to celebrate shark week with!
More Recipes to Try
Tips and Alternatives
- Try peach rings, swedish fish or fruit roll-ups to add other colors/detials to the pudding cup.
- For Halloween, use a ghost peep and candy pumpkin on top of the crushed oreos
- For an easter garden variation, add peeps, easter eggs, or use a chocolate covered strawberry decorated to look like a carrot.
- Try a dino themed by adding candy or toy dinos.
- This would be great for a construction party, just add some toy dumpsters and excavators!
- Use gummy worms or sour gummy worms for a traditional dirt cup, add sour gummy worms.
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Get the Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 box family size vanilla instant pudding
- 3 cups chilled milk (whole or 2%)
- 8 oz cool whip
- 24 golden oreos (or vanilla wafers)
- 16 teddy graham crackers
- candies to decorate
Equipment
Instructions
- Make your instant pudding by combining milk and the packet and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
- Combine with cool whip. After combining allow to chill in the refrigerator. This is an optional step but helps the consistency set up!
- While your pudding is chilling, crush up your oreos or vanilla wafers. I do this by adding to a ziploc gallon baggie and crushing with a rolling pin.
- Add your blue food coloring. Add a few drops at a time until you reach your desired shade of blue. I recommend gel food coloring.
- Begin adding your pudding layers to the bottom of a cup. I alternate pudding and oreo crumbs.
- Add a layer of crushed up oreos, then top with pudding again. For the top layer of crumbs to create a beach effect I only put crumbs on half of the cup.
- To make your floating teddy graham bears, add a gummy life saver around it about halfway. Then add the bear to the top of the blue pudding as if it's floating in the water.
- Add any other details, like the gummy sharks or bear lounging on the twizzler pool float or beach towel. You could use all kinds of candies for this part to create a fun beach scene!
My son thought these looked so fun! And immediately picked out all the candy. 🙂