I love it when experiments work out! In this case, I had a half box of pumpkin cake mix leftover from making Pumpkin Cake Mix Cookie Bark. The experiment was to see if it would work as a half batch pumpkin dump cake baked in a pie plate.
But let me back up for those of you who don’t know what a dump cake is. It’s a type of cake where you pour some sort of filling (pie filling, pumpkin, cherry filling,) into a large cake pan, sprinkle the top with dry cake mix, drizzle with butter and bake. In theory you are supposed to just dump everything into the pan, but a lot of people like to toss the cake mix with the melted butter just to distribute things evenly. Anyhow, I usually make a full batch in a 9×13 inch pan, but this was a half batch baked in a 9 1/2 inch deep dish pie plate.
It worked perfectly on the first try, and the pie is so tasty. Or should I say, cake?
Here’s the recipe for those of you who like smaller batch recipes. Or if you want, you can use a full box of cake mix and make 2!
Half Batch Pumpkin Dump Cake Pie
Ingredients
- 1 15 oz can of pumpkin
- 3/4 cup evaporated milk
- 1 large egg plus 2 tablespoons of a second egg see note
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar or use 1/4 cup brown and 1/4 cup granulated
- 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 of an 15.25 oz box yellow cake mix or spice cake mix (1 2/3 cup) or Perfectly Pumpkin
- 6 tablespoons butter softened to "almost" melted (I used unsalted) plus extra for greasing
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 or 9 1/2 inch deep dish pie plate generously with some butter.
- Whisk together pumpkin, evaporated milk, 1 1/2 eggs, sugars, pumpkin pie spice in a medium bowl. Pour into greased pie plate.
- Mix together the cake mix and softened butter to make a very soft and crumbly dough. Sprinkle over top of the pumpkin mixture, then sprinkle pecans on top.
- Bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown.
- Let cool to room temperature and then chill until ready to serve. To serve, bring back to room temperature.
- Slice and serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
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