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On Your Table Blog

March 11, 2026

ND dirt cake for Pi Day

ND dirt cake for Pi Day

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by Kelli Bowen

Math nerds and dessert connoisseurs alike can get behind the “holiday” at the end of this week: Pi Day.  

March 14 (3.14) is called out because the date matches the first three significant digits of the constant Pi.  

In my house, we are more cake people, or maybe a cookie, and we all like North Dakota dirt cake, which I argue is a pie. 

A cake is a baked dessert usually made of flour, eggs, and sugar. A pie is a sweet filling inside, or atop a crust. That being said, what we call North Dakota Dirt Cake in my house should really be a pie. 

North Dakota Dirt Cake

Ingredients

18 ounces Oreos

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup powdered sugar

1 packet of instant chocolate pudding

1 packet  instant vanilla pudding

3 1/2 cups milk

A container of Cool Whip

Gummy worms are optional 

Instructions

Combine softened cream cheese and powdered sugar and set aside. 

Combine pudding mixes and milk. Stir for a couple minutes. Add the cream cheese and pudding mixtures together. Then fold in the Cool Whip, David (Oh, Catherine O’Hara, you comedic genius).

Layer the crushed Ores with sugary pudding goo, and add worms. Toss some crushed Oreos on top with gummy worms and voila, North Dakota Dirt Cake, which is really a pie…or not…decide for yourself. 

So Saturday can be a little sweeter when you try this standard midwestern dessert, and you can have the cake versus pie debate. If someone asks why you’re eating a whole dessert yourself, just say you’re doing research. Besides, if it’s 3.14, you can say you just really like math.


Kelli BowenKelli, a North Dakota girl through and through, has made her home from the eastern prairies to the western badlands with her supportive Hubby, two daughters, and ever-growing menagerie accompanying her along the way.

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