How to Make the Best Pumpkin Dump Cake

How to make the best pumpkin dump cake. This simple and easy recipe is better than any desserts you've ever had! It is made with a yellow cake mix and sweetened condensed or evaporated milk, sugar, and spices and topped with crunchy roasted pecans.

A few weeks ago, Joe cleaned out the big chest freezer we keep in our basement.

We have been doing pretty well with meal planning using the Meal Planning Made Easy system I created, but we realized that we were buying meat every time it was on sale. This might sound like a good idea, but we kept buying and buying, and the freezer was getting more and more stuffed - and we were not really ever using the meat we bought and froze. So Joe took everything out of the freezer with the intention of making an inventory to put into our meal planning binder.

It's a big freezer, and he found a lot of stuff. There was some unidentified and freezer burnt stuff, and that all got thrown away of course. There were countless bags of frozen fruit and homemade applesauce. There were twelve (12!) individually wrapped packages of ground beef, so we obviously won't need to buy that for a while. There were also eight packages of chicken breasts, several beef and pork roasts, and enough steaks to feed the whole neighborhood.

Apparently, we really like steak.

Near the end of the project, Joe appeared in the dining room with two rather small containers of yellowish orange stuff. I smelled them, but being that they were frozen, smell was not a clue. We both thought they might be pumpkin, so we thawed them to find out. Once we knew for sure, I had to decide what to make with it.

I had a few ideas, namely:

• Pumpkin Flan
• Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Crumb Topping
• Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

That flan is definitely my favorite, but I didn't have all the ingredients at home so I gave up on it. I did have a yellow cake mix and a lot of butter though, so I thought it might be good to try and make a dump cake.

What is a dump cake?

The idea of a dump cake is very simple, you just dump everything into a cake pan and bake it. They are very simple.

So, for example, a cherry dump cake typically takes a can of cherry pie filling, spread in the bottom of a 9x13 pan, and then you sprinkle a yellow cake mix on top, and then pour melted butter over all that and sprinkle it with chopped almonds.  Then you bake. That's all there is to it.

So for a pumpkin dump cake, I was thinking that I would need something to make a pumpkin layer on the bottom, and then I could just top it with a cake mix, melted butter, and nuts.

And that's exactly was I did.

And the cake was DELICIOUS! Even my pumpkin-hating kid loved it.

How to make the best pumpkin dump cake

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a deep 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
2. Combine the pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, eggs, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix well and pour into the prepared pan.
3. Sprinkle the pumpkin mixture with the cake mix and then the pecans.
4. Pour melted butter evenly over the cake mix.
5. Bake for 1 hour, until center is set and the edges are golden brown.

Note on using fresh or frozen pumpkin (rather than canned)

To use fresh or frozen pumpkin, you will probably need to remove some of the liquid. I boiled mine because I thought that would be easiest, but you could also strain it through cheesecloth and a colander or strainer.

To boil the pumpkin, place it in a small sauce pan and cook it on medium-low heat for 15 minutes or so, until it has thickened and the watery liquid has cooked off. Note that it will not be as thick as canned pumpkin, but it will work in the recipe as long as it doesn't have a lot of watery liquid on top.