Dump Cake, Our Favorite

I have a dump cake in the oven and it's almost ready. I can tell because it's starting to smell really, really good. It just occurred to me that I hadn't posted the recipe here on the blog and there may be people who don't remember the details of the recipe or others who haven't discovered how easy and good this cake is. So, here's my favorite quick, easy, very tasty dump cake recipe.

Dump Cake

1 can crushed pineapple
1 can cherry pie filling
1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter or margarine
chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Open and dump the can of pineapple into a 9 x 13 inch cake pan. Use a spoon to even it out in the pan. Open the can of cherry pie filling and gently use the spoon to dump it evenly on top of the pineapple. Open the box of cake mix and gently distribute the dry mix evenly on top of the fruit. Don't stir. Now, either melt the butter and pour it evenly over the dry cake mix or you can do as I do and cut the butter into little chunks and place the little chunks of butter evenly on top of the cake mix. If using, add the nuts on top. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes or until the cake is bubbly and golden brown. Serve warm (not hot) or at room temperature with or without a scoop of ice cream on top. I promise, it tastes as good as it smells!

You can use two sticks of butter if you want it to, but one works just fine if you distribute it carefully. That's why I prefer the chunk method to the melt-and-pour method; the "crust" comes out better that way for me.

When 9 x 13 is more than I need, I make a smaller version by using just the pie filling and a one-layer cake mix in a 9 x 9 inch pan, more or less converting the recipe to cherry cobbler.

Mine's done and looks absolutely beautiful. Wish I would have bought the ice cream after all, but even a plain dump cake tastes pretty fancy.