So many delicious desserts come with beautiful names—ambrosia,ladyfingers,pralines. The Dump Cake, an Internet sensation described as "so easy and very yummy," is not one of them. In fact, it's just the opposite: "dump cake" is by far the worst name in the history of desserts.
I'd never even heard the term—much less did I know how to make a dump cake—until recently, when I came across theyears-oldidea of "dumping" a bunch of pre-made ingredients—usually yellow cake mix and cherry pie filling—into a pan and baking it. And while I didn't—and still don't— understand the name, I instantly understood the appeal. People want an easy dessert. And dump cakes are as easy as dessert gets.
So I dug in. Lowering myself into adump cake wormhole on Pinterest, I found cakes made with everything from orange soda and white cake mix to chocolate cake, cherry cobbler filling, and Dr. Pepper. When I found a recipe that sounded good to me, I made it. And after a few weeks of this, I came to a conclusion:#DumpCakesDeserveBetter.
A dump cake should yield consistent results (they usually don't) and use real ingredients (they never do). So I gave myself a better-than-dump-cake challenge. For weeks I dumped, and dumped, and dumped. And eventually, I figured out how to make a dump cake that's much, much better than its name would suggest.
The Problem With OG Dump Cake
The first dump cake I made was a classic: a bag of frozen blueberries, a can of crushed pineapple, and a box of yellow cake mix, all emptied into a baking dish and hydrated with a can of Sprite. Was it easy? Absolutely. Was it delicious? I'm not so sure.
出于某种原因,几乎每个转储ins蛋糕食谱ists that the ingredients are not to be stirred. (In fact, most recipes add extra emphasis to this instruction by writing it in all-caps: DO NOT STIR!!!) The result of this laissez-faire approach is a half-baked cake. The portion of the yellow cake mix that touches liquid, either the fruit or the soda, bakes through, while the rest sits in unbaked, floury clumps on top.
And the mouthfuls of dusty, raw cake mix is just one of dump cake's problems. The other is the sickly sweetness and gloopy texture that comes with canned fruit, overpowering any hint of fresh flavor.
How to Make an Improved Dump Cake
I liked the idea of a super simple, pour-it-in-and-bake dessert, but I wasn't keen on the idea of using a pre-made mix. I was certain I could develop a just-as-simple recipe but still have it be completely homemade. A quick whisking together of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt did the trick, forming acake mixthat works interchangeably with the boxed stuff, whether for dump cakes, birthday cakes, or cupcakes. Make it ahead of time, put it in a jar or bag, and keep it around for the next time you want to makeanycake, dump or no.
Some dump cakes use butter in place of soda for their liquid ingredients. Since the Sprite didn't exactly work out as Pinterest promised, I decided to go this route for my next go-around. Some recipes suggest melting the butter, but I imagined that would create the same underbaked situation as the soda, so I cubed the butter and spread it evenly on the top of the cake. As it baked, the butter melted throughout the pan, hitting every bit of cake mix and forming pockets of cake in-between the fruit.
And speaking of that fruit, I was also ready to ditch the too-sweet canned stuff. Instead, I went with frozen peaches and fresh blueberries. It's almost more easy, because you just cut open a bag peaches, open a pint of blueberries, and pour (okay, dump) them into the pan. No can opener required, and the flavor is so much better.
(If you feel like going the extra mile and wielding a pairing knife in season, pull out a few of summer's best fruit and slice some fresh peaches into the mix. The flavor will be incredible—and come on, slicing peaches is still pretty easy.)
Because I'm a sucker for the combo of peaches and pecans, I couldn't help but add some nuts into the mix. But there's an added bonus to the delicious factor the nuts add: they bring a crunchy texture to a dessert that can often veer into mushy territory. Not a fan of pecans? Try slivered almonds or chopped walnuts. Once you get dumping, the sky is the limit.
Now I know that the point of dump cakes is easy—they actually also go by the namelazy cakes—and I understand that NOT STIRRING (!!!) makes them easier than easy. But giving the pan a little shake to cover the fruit with the dry ingredients and make sure everything is evenly baked, is pretty darn easy. So that's the method I suggest. It not only results in a better cake, it results in a better name for the cake. Because when you don't dump, you don't have dump cake—you've got "Shake-and-Bake Cake." And who wouldn't want to eat a slice of that?
