You're Only A Few Ingredients Away From Turning Boxed Cake Mix Into An Apple Dessert

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There's nothing quite like the smell and taste of a freshly baked cake coming out of the oven. For those who want to streamline the process, boxed cake mix takes the basic ingredients of a scratch-made recipe and puts them into a convenient format. If you really want to take your favorite mix to a new level, adding a generous portion of cinnamon-spiced apples and melted butter will turn a basic boxed cake into a crave-worthy apple dump cake.

Despite going by a rather unappealing name, what dump cake lacks in title, it makes up for in substance. The ease of preparing a dump cake takes the guesswork entirely out of the process, particularly the task of mixing. It's just a matter of adding your fruit filling ingredients to the bottom of a greased baking dish, sprinkling the dry cake mix on top, and pouring melted butter over that, ensuring full coverage, before popping it into the oven to bake.

In lieu of a canned version like Duncan Hines' Comstock Simply Apple Pie Filling, adding a batch of fresh cinnamon apples will give your super simple dump cake just the right element of scratch-made effort. Per Melissa Olivieri's apple dump cake recipe for Tasting Table, all you need is a box of vanilla cake mix, six apples that have been peeled and chopped, lemon juice, granulated sugar, and apple pie spice to make this cake. Of course, you can always use this as a springboard for your own culinary creativity.

While a basic apple pie spice mixture will typically include ingredients like cinnamon, clove, ginger, and nutmeg, you can certainly experiment with your favorite warming spices from around the globe to spice up your apples for a fulfilling fruit filling. What's more? With so many different types of apples to choose from, you don't have to limit yourself to just one style. Mix up tart Granny Smith apples with sweet Honeycrisps for a more complex flavor profile.

It's also important to heed the cardinal rule of dump cakes, which is to avoid mixing the batter. The entire spirit — and unfortunate name — of the humble dump cake dessert defies mixing in favor of a lower effort dump that nonetheless yields delightful results. Though vanilla cake is an ideal base for its mild flavor, you can turn up the taste factor by trying out other cake mixes instead.

To complement your apple pie-spiced apples, swap in a boxed cake mix like Duncan Hines Signature Spice Cake Mix to coordinate the flavors. For a more decadent version, try a chocolate cake mix, butter pecan cake mix, or even a red velvet cake mix. You can also add other fruits to your filling or mix in a can of apple pie filling along with your fresh apples to vary the taste and textures of the dump cake. Any way you choose to prepare this dessert, it's sure to satisfy.