DELICIOUS DUMP CAKES is a mouthwatering collection of no-fuss desserts that taste fantastic and that you prepare in just minutes. Now anyone can bake the best rich, wonderful, and comforting desserts and get out of the kitchen with lightning-quick speed.
Let’s face it, not everyone is a gourmet cook, but everyone eats, and very few can resist dessert. This book takes fantastic desserts away from pastry chefs and puts them into the hands of today’s busy home cooks. Simplicity and efficiency combined with great flavor make each of these layered treats a winner!
Delicious Dump Cakes features a wide array of super-easy, great-tasting cakes and desserts. For nearly all of the recipes, just layer the ingredients in the pan. For a few, you may need to prepare a pudding mix or something equally simple, but you will never have to struggle with complex steps or lots of dirty dishes.
Most people credit a simple combination of a can of cherry pie filling and a can of crushed pineapple, layered in a 9 × 13-inch pan and topped with a yellow cake mix and butter as the first dump cake. Scouts may remember baking this treat in a Dutch oven over a campfire, and many will remember when tables at church potlucks and family reunions were lined with pans of this popular dessert.
It is a tasty cake, but why stop there? The flavor combinations are nearly endless, and this collection presents a wide array of dump cakes. The only hard part is trying to select your favorite.
1. Layer the ingredients evenly in the pan in the order listed. Do not stir unless specifically directed to do so in the recipe.
2. Bake in a preheated oven for the time listed. Typically, the oven is preheated to 350°F.
3. Allow to cool for 15 to 30 minutes, then enjoy.
♦ Use the size of the pan listed in the recipe. For most of the recipes, that is a 9 × 13-inch baking pan. Either a metal pan or glass baking dish can be used.
♦ Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.
♦ Spread the ingredients evenly.
♦ Canned pie filling and crushed pineapple may have been the first fruits used in dump cakes, but other fruits can now be used. Dump cakes today may include layers of other canned fruits as well as pieces of fresh or frozen fruit. The recipes specify whether to use the liquid when using canned fruit.
♦ Cake mix is often used dry or just sprinkled out of the box evenly into the pan. Break up any lumps in the dry cake mix. A fork makes this easy to do.
♦ Many dump cakes include nuts, chocolate chips, crushed candy bars, or other flavor additions. Be sure to sprinkle these evenly over the cake mix.
♦ Moisten all the cake mix with the liquid or the butter. Drizzle the liquid or melted butter slowly so it seeps into the cake mix.
♦ Some recipes will suggest you stir or blend ingredients together. These dump cakes are often chocolate or other flavors that are not layered with fruit. For these recipes, the dry cake mix is frequently blended with an instant pudding mix and milk or another liquid.
♦ Some recipes suggest blending the ingredients in a mixing bowl and others blending them right in the baking pan. It is your choice whether to blend in the pan or a bowl. A mixing bowl is very convenient, but blending in the pan means one less bowl to wash. If you blend in the pan, be sure to get into the corners of the pan and blend all the ingredients. A rubber spatula will help you get into the corners of the pan.
♦ When done, the top of the dump cake will be golden brown and lightly set. The cake may begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.
♦ Allow dump cakes to cool for 15 to 30 minutes before serving.
♦ Dump cakes are often best served while slightly warm, and are ideally served on the same day they are made.
♦ Store leftover dump cakes made with fruit, pudding, or cream in the refrigerator. If you wish to reheat a dump cake, only reheat those without frosting or whipped topping. Reheat the dump cake, uncovered, in a 350°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until warm.
♦ Dump cakes are especially good topped with a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream, or thawed frozen whipped topping. You can top dump cakes with your favorite frosting, but many dump cakes are sweet and moist enough that they do not need frosting.
Choose unsalted (sweet) butter.
Some recipes will recommend melted butter. Drizzle the melted butter very slowly over the cake so it seeps in and moistens the entire cake mix.
Other recipes will suggest slicing the cold butter into very thin slivers. Butter is easier to slice into slivers if you use a thin, sharp knife and the butter is well chilled. Arrange the slivers over the top of the cake mix, distributing them as evenly as possible and covering the top of the cake completely.
Low-fat, light, soft, whipped, or tubs of butter all have a different formulation than sticks of butter and are not recommended for these recipes, as the texture and the flavor of the dump cake may be adversely affected.
Many dump cake recipes begin with a cake mix while some even begin with a muffin mix, bar cookie mix, or other mix.
Sprinkle the dry cake mix into the prepared pan. Spread the cake mix evenly, breaking up any lumps.
Cake mixes are available in both two-layer- and one-layer-size packages. Cake mixes sized to make two-layer cakes are commonly used for dump cakes, but occasionally the smaller, one-layer cake mix is recommended. Follow the recipe recommendation for the best results.
The package weight for many two-layer cake mixes ranges from 15.25 to 18 ounces, especially for such common flavors such as yellow, chocolate, and vanilla cake. The national brands, including Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and Duncan Hines, and many store brands generally seem to fall within this range and this is the weight range used for testing these recipes. Some flavors, specifically lemon, caramel, and red velvet cake mixes, range in weight from 16 to 19 ounces. When selecting a cake mix, we recommend using one of approximately the same weight as that listed in the recipe. The exact weight of the mix varies with the brand and the flavor and we have found that the slight deviations do not affect the baking and still produce great cakes.
Those cake mixes with pudding in the mix (often labeled “extra moist”) and those without pudding work equally well. Use either type of cake mix for the dump cake recipes in this book. If the dump cake recipe you are using recommends blending the cake mix into a pudding mix, and your cake mix lists that it has pudding in it, go ahead and blend it into a separate package of pudding mix just as the recipe recommends.
You will spot several brands of cake mix on the grocery store shelf; experiment a little to determine which you enjoy the most.
Can you interchange flavors? Sure, but we recommend you choose a similar flavor for the best results. For example, if the recipe lists devil’s food cake and you choose to use a chocolate cake mix, the dump cake recipe will work fine. Similarly a yellow and a white cake mix can be interchanged.
Stock up on the cake mixes when they are on sale. Be sure to double-check the date code and use the cake mixes before they expire.
See here on how to make your own mix.
Some recipes recommend a can of evaporated milk, while others list half-and-half. These can be used interchangeably as long as you use the same amount. You can also substitute an equal amount of fresh, whole milk for the evaporated milk or half-and-half.
Other liquids, such as fruit juice, liquor, or wine, are listed in the recipes and work great in dump cakes. You can substitute liquids, such as using fruit juice for bourbon or wine, and they will work nicely but such changes may alter the flavor or the texture of the dump cake slightly.
Toasting the pecans, walnuts, or other nuts intensifies their flavor. To toast the nuts, spread them out in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 350ºF for 5 to 7 minutes or until lightly toasted.
