This delicious pumpkin dessert is known around the internet as “dump cake.” Hailed for it’s ease, it can be whipped up in mere minutes and tastes like a sweet pumpkin pie topped with buttery crumble topping. I love that it can be served either warm, room temperature, or cold. You can also cut it into nice tidy squares, or scoop it rustically into a bowl with ice cream (my preference). Any way you serve it- this fun dessert is as great for a fancy holiday meal as it is for a weekend treat.
Note: If you’ve been around long enough, you know I used to have a variation of this recipe here with part of the topping being used as a crust. With the ever changing sizes of cake mixes, this recipe got complicated so I’m editing it back to it’s original (easier!) form and giving it a needed update!
Ingredients Needed
- Boxed cake mix – I recommend Duncan hines, yellow, white, or spice
- Butter – I suggest unsalted butter because otherwise it may come out too salty for your tastes. That being said, I like my food on the saltier side and I usually just use regular salted butter because that’s what I have on hand!
- Canned pumpkin – plain pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling.
- Eggs
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Cinnamon
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Ginger
- Cloves
- Nutmeg
- Salt
- Chopped pecans
How to Make Pumpkin Crumble
- Make pumpkin layer: mix canned pumpkin, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and spices until smooth. Pour this mixture into a 9×13 baking pan.
- Pour a standard boxed cake mix over the top of this layer and spread out evenly. This can be pretty much any flavor! I’ve made this countless times and I will say my preferred brand is Duncan Hines. Spice Cake or Yellow Cake are my family’s favorites.
- Sprinkle chopped nuts over the cake mix. If you have an allergy or aversion to nuts, you can skip them, but I love the crunch it adds!
- Pour 1 cup of melted butter over the top of everything. It’s okay to see dry cake mix still. It will take care of itself in the oven!
- Bake and serve!
You can see I left nuts off one end for one of my nut-free kids!
Serving, Storing and Other Tips
- You can serve in a variety of ways. It’s great warm with ice cream, it’s also great cut into squares at room temperature, and it’s delicious cold out of the fridge!
- It’s sweet enough on its own, but a drizzle of caramel sauce over the ice cream is extra delicious.
- For best results, store leftovers, tightly covered, in the refrigerator and eat within 3-4 days.
This photo shows a slice made with a spice cake mix. Spice cake is my favorite, but my family all prefers the yellow cake mix!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Any cake mix should work. We love yellow and spice, but white, gingerbread, even chocolate is delicious.
I’ve never tried it, but I imagine you could swap out the cake mix for your favorite gluten-free mix. If you try this, let me know!
You can certainly prep the pumpkin layer in advance, cover, and store in the fridge for up to 24 hours. I would prep the topping fresh, right before you’re ready to bake!
Dump Cake Variations
You can use this trick for any sort of filling. Instead of pumpkin pie on the bottom, you can layer canned pie filling. We love cherry pie with chocolate cake mix, too!
Easy Pumpkin Crumble
Ingredients
Pumpkin Layer
- 15 ounces canned pumpkin puree (one can) not pumpkin pie filling, one standard can
- 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk one standard can
- 2 eggs
- 1½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon salt
Topping
- 1 standard boxed yellow, white, or spice cake mix I prefer Duncan Hines
- ¾ cup pecans, chopped
- 1 cup unsalted butter I use salted butter, but if you're sensitive to salt you may want to stick with unsalted!
- Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for serving optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Coat a 9×13 pan with a light coat of nonstick spray.
- Mix pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices, and salt until smooth. Pour into prepared pan.
- Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the top. Sprinkle on nuts.
- Drizzle melted butter all over the top of the dry cake mix. You will still have dry cake mix peeking through and that's okay.
- Bake at 350℉ for about 45 minutes. The topping should be lightly golden brown and set. A skewer put in the pumpkin should come out with no batter attached.
- You can eat it warm, at room temp, or chilled. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream are optional, but delicious.
Notes
- This makes a dessert about an inch thick or less. That’s because I like a high topping-to-pumpkin ratio. If you’d like it thicker, use a large can of pumpkin and double the rest of the filling ingredients (Eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and spices). Leave the rest of the recipe the same.
- Here’s a little something I learned after making the dump cake a gazillion times. Cake mixes all have different amounts in them! Different brands, different flavors, etc. Each one is slightly different in volume. I found one mix to have almost double the normal amount. Measuring the amount of cake mix you’re sprinkling on top will help you get the perfect topping ratio in the last step.
- For best results, store leftovers, tightly covered, in the refrigerator and eat within 3-4 days.
Questions & Reviews
Quick question. Does this need sugar added to it? I noticed all the other recipes I’m finding call for sugar. Just want to make sure I’ve got it right. Thanks!
Nope, it’s correct as written. Most recipes call for evaporated milk, but notice mine uses sweetened condensed milk- that’s where the sweetness comes in!
This is the identical recipe my aunt gave me 20 years ago when I went to her house for Thanksgiving. She didn’t know where she had gotten it originally. I’ve given the recipe out dozens of times, but always told people I wasn’t sure who to credit. I’ve seen it here and there through the years, but no one ever knows the source. Do you know where the recipe originated?
If you’re talking about the traditional “Dump Cakes” then who knows! They’ve been around forever and ever. My version however is one I came up with myself. So if you’re aunt gave you the identical recipe then that’s just bizarre!
Would this recipe work with Duncan Hines French vanilla cake mix?
Yep, pretty much any cake mix will do!
Hi Sara! I saw the pumpkin crumble recipe in the new cookbook (which I love, by the way!). I have been wanting to make it, but I’ve gone to several grocery stores and can’t find white cake mix in the 18.25 oz size, only in the 16.5 oz size. So, I came to the blog to see if the recipe was here and if I could gain some insight. So, as I’ve looked through it, the recipe is different here than it is in the cookbook. I’m assuming you perfected some things since you posted this on the blog, and the one in the cookbook is your recommended way to make it, correct? So, now I’m stuck wondering what to do? What adjustments should I make if I can only find the 16.5 oz cake mix? Thanks for your help! Or you can email me if that’s easier. 🙂
No adjustments necessary, all cake mixes are a little different in weight, but it all ends up the same. Enjoy!
Found this recipe about an hour ago on Facebook and it’s already in the oven (which I’m very impatiently waiting to be done!!). It smells AMAZING in my house right now! I can’t wait to try it!!!!! Thanks for a great Fall recipe!
how many servings does this recipe and the doubled recipe yield if we serve for a bible study. thanks
They’re both made in a 9×13 pan, so really they serve about the same. You can choose how many servings depending on how you scoop it out!
I made this yesterday for my husband’s birthday and boy-oh-boy did you ladies make me look good! This is a winner of a recipe, not too much cheesecake and just the right amount of pumpkin. I failed to notice that it needed some time in the fridge to set up, however popping it in the freezer worked like a charm! Thanks for the tip!
yep, that last comment was meant for the Layered Pumpkin Cheescake…
Sooo Yummy. I just made it to tryout for Thanksgiving. Much better than pie! Thanks for the recipe.
I made this today with the doubled recipe and the filling was delicious. However, the topping was gooey (despite the filling being perfectly cooked) and the bottom was not only chalky in texture but also salty in taste, perhaps due to a high amount of salt in the cake mix I chose.
hmm, that’s weird, it should be cooked just fine. The saltiness must be from the specific brand of cake mix; I’ve never had either of those problems; sorry!
I gave this another try, this time using Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Yellow Cake Mix and not doubling the filling (previously I had used Dr. Oetker). The filling was once again very good. However, the topping was still pretty gooey and the bottom still somewhat salty – pretty much what you’d expect from uncooked cake mix. People liked the dessert but I don’t intend to serve it ever again.
Maybe you’re using “salted” butter. Try unsalted.
I feel like I’m a good cook but after discovering your website I am thinking that I still have a lot to learn. Who knew that’s how you cut up a watermelon! I don’t pull out the pumpkin pie filling until September because I make pumpkin bread every year for friends and family. But this year, in addition to pumpkin bread I will be making this Easy Pumpkin Crumble. My mouth was watering just reading over the recipe. I love your website. The easy to follow photos really help when you’re trying to decipher what the recipe should look like as you are making it. Love this website. I’ve bookmarked it and will go back time and time again for future ideas. Great work!