Pumpkin Dump Cake

Dump cakes are beloved because of their ease. However, most dump cakes are made with canned fruit pie fillings, requiring only a few store-bought ingredients to dump in a pan and bake. Pumpkin is a different story. Velvety in texture and both savory and sweet in flavor, pure pumpkin puree requires a few more ingredients to make it set into a delicious filling.Our approach to this Pumpkin Dump Cake is essentially making the equivalent of a pumpkin pie filling and using that filling in the same way we would a canned fruit filling in another dump cake. We whisk together the pumpkin with half-and-half for richness, brown sugar for deep sweetness, several traditional spices for a classic pumpkin pie flavor, and eggs to form the structure of the filling. Then, just as you’d imagine, we dump a package of yellow cake mix across the filling and pour over some melted butter that soaks into the cake mix as it bakes. The outcome is a cake that’s buttery and flavorful with both the familiar tastes of a yellow cake and a spiced pumpkin pie. We recommend serving the cake with whipped cream and freshly grated nutmeg for enhanced creaminess and spice.