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Dump Cake
Updated April 17, 2024
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- Total Time
- 60 minutes
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 55 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1(21-ounce) can cherry pie filling
- 2(8-ounce) cans crushed pineapple in juice
- 1(15.25-ounce) box white or yellow cake mix
- ¾cup unsalted butter (1½ sticks)
- Whipped cream, for serving (optional)
- Vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the center position.
- Step 2
Add the cherry pie filling and the crushed pineapple, including any juices, to a 9-by-13-inch (3-quart) baking dish. Using a spatula, evenly spread the mixture across the baking dish (there is no need to mix it).
- Step 3
Scatter the cake mix evenly on top, without stirring, and smooth the top.
- Step 4
Melt the butter and drizzle evenly on top of the cake mix. If there are any dry spots, spread the butter out wherever it pools (gently tilting the baking dish works well here).
- Step 5
Bake on the center rack until the top is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling, 45 to 50 minutes. Serve warm, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
The way my mom made this dessert back in the late 60s in New Orleans tasted lovely, and was not too sweet. The name "dump cake" hadn't yet come into being; she and her friends called it a cobbler. Into an 8- or 9-inch square pan: 2 cans of water-packed, pitted sour cherries (liquid included); sprinkle a box of butter pecan cake mix evenly over the fruit; evenly spoon .25 pound of melted salted butter over the cake mix; and bake until brown. It should be nicely crisp. Serve with ice cream.
My mother made this all the time growing up. We loved it. She used cherry pie filling (no pineapple) plus slivered almonds (a must). I now make this, but I buy frozen cherries and make my own filling. It’s way better. It seems most cans of cherry pie filling are short on the cherries and heavy on the gloop.
Yes! Just dump the dry mix on top of the pie filling. The way I always make this is minus the pineapple, just cherry pie filling. I also just thinly slice the butter rather than melt it and just add the thin pats of butter all around on top of the cake mix. That's how I learned how to make it. It's really yummy!
From Girl Scout camp I know that you can bake this in a coffee can over a fire.
My DIL loves peach, so I devised a peach dumpcake, replacing the cherry pie filling with the larger can of peaches which I partially drain. Other than that, I follow this recipe as usual. It makes a really nice peach pie alternative. I typically add cardamom to my peach recipes. It's a nice change of pace.
Just a minute, I need to know if I understood this. I should dump the dry cake mix on top of the fruit?
Instead of melting butter I used a potato peeler to slice of strips of butter for the top. Easy to make sure it was distributed evenly.
This is very similar to a family recipe for blueberry dump cake. The difference: use fresh or frozen blueberries on the bottom, then one small can of crushed pineapple on top, then the cake mix spread across the top, then a few crushed pecans – all before pouring the melted butter over it all. It is so good!
I bet you boys had a lot of fun with the name & thought your Mom called it that just for you. 😊 What a sweet Mom not to tell you that & spoil your fun. You missed her twinkling eyes & small grin, because you were so busy wolfing down the grunt (between grunting noises). Now that you're big I can tell you that a "grunt" is the New England name for a cobbler-like dessert of fruit baked under soft biscuits - from the fruit making soft animal-like grunts as it boiled & popped under the crust.
Also - USE PECANS! i have a family member who has nut allergy so I leave about 1/4 of the 9X13 pan nut free. Otherwise, I put lots of pecan peaces on the rest. Adds a lot. This is a deceptively good pie/cake/cobbler.
I’ve stirred the cake in for a similar recipe before after reading this technique in other recipes. It was a disaster. Half of the cake is never cooked properly. I’d adhere to the instructions of not mixing, especially since others on this chain have success with the recipe as written or handed down through generations.
Note: bake in a glass or ceramic pan, NOT aluminum. If you keep it for more than a couple days, the acid from the pineapple will start eating through the aluminum. My family's recipe included coconut and chopped pecans. Wverything else is the same. Delish!
My family makes this with a devils’s food cake mix, and I’ve riffed further with spice cake mix atop apple pie filling. Delicious with ice cream.
Don’t let the simplicity of this recipe fool you. Sure, it’s mindless, takes zero skill and the ingredients are trash, but it’s surprisingly great and kids LOVE it. As a child I used to ask my mom to make this for me four decades ago and it still tastes exactly like I remember it. Only back then we called it junk cake.
My mother used to make her dump cake in an tube pan and added pecans to the topping. Quite decadent! OTOH, another relative didn’t quite get the concept of do not stir. They mixed everything before baking, and the result was not as tasty.
Are there dump cakes that don't use boxed cake mixes?
Have made these for years, always a hit.
Question @Naz and/or experienced chefs: It's peach season and I can't think of canned cherries when so many ripe peaches abound! What adjustments would we have to make to allow for fresh vs. canned fruit?
And I need to add - I don't melt the butter. I use butter out of the refrigerator and simply slice thin pieces and put them over the top of the cake mixture. Works great rather than melting the butter.
I've made this for years - it's in a family recipe book I produced more than 30 years ago. Once I brought it to a gathering where I didn't know everyone. A couple of women were have a piece of dump cake for dessert (they didn't know that was its name!) and they just raved about how delicious it was! So fun. I do put pecans or walnuts on the top.
You can make this in a slow cooker too. That is how I have made it for years. Recipe from my New Orleans grandmother.
Didn't use pineapple...did use 2 cans cherries. Getting the butter to cover the top was difficult. Very tasty and easy!
I substituted frozen dark cherries (about 1 1/2 bags) for the cherry pie filling. Added large can of crushed pineapple, white cake mix and shingled thin butter slices all over the top. It came out so delicious!
Pumpkin Dump Cake is awesome,too! To be fair, the pumpkin part you do have to prepare, but the topping is the same. Some call it "Upside Down Pumpkin Pie." My family loves it!!
Don’t make my mistake. What started as a fun project turned into a disaster when I tried to melt the butter in my microwave. It blew up all over the microwave, and I had a giant mess to clean up. Kind of put a damper on my dump cake. I’m not sure how much butter I have on it now. It’s still in the oven so I can’t comment on the taste yet. Waaaaaa
If you switch out the fruit fillings (i.e. canned vs frozen), how much measured liquid is needed?
Maybe the cake mix used makes a difference. I used Betty Crocker white and it is so cloyingly sweet I can’t eat it. Added pecans and the cherries and pineapple were good, maybe would have been better with more of a cobbler topping.
My kids weren't so keen on this and really didn't think it was cake. So I ate it by myself after they went to bed in two sittings. Its good, and hella easy.
This is very sweet, but delightful. It creates what is basically a cherry cobbler, with cake (from the mix) as the top crust. There are other recipes that do the same thing and maybe have a better flavor - but that’s not the point. This is something that can be thrown together from pantry staples, and easy enough that anyone can do it. My changes/additions: some almond extract into the cherries, and coat the top with sliced almonds. Cautions: get the butter spread all over, no dry bits
Question: TMF says she makes her own cherry pie filling with frozen cherries. What do you need to add to the frozen cherries to make your own pie filling?
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