Is easy worth it? Dump cakes and sheet cakes
"Those beautiful pictures have got to be a lie because I have tried this multiple times with the same exact results as you. I used peaches. I could have made yellow cupcakes and been happy."
a food blog comment
It does look yummy doesn't it? Though, as one site said, more like a fruit cobbler than a cake.
A word of explanation - It's time for the monthly Coles Magazine and this month they had a two page spread on dump cakes - their example being a pineapple version, that also included carrot. It's an American thing of course. I was intrigued by the name - not a good one is it? And the recipe, although I recoiled because it was made with cake mix and canned fruit. Both products that I would never buy. Nevertheless the method was intriguing and very simple and explained why it is called a dump cake. There are three layers that you dump one by one into your dish without mixing. Then you bake it. And it's supposed to look something like the picture at the top of the page, depending on the fruit you have used. Oh and you can add something crunchy to the top too.
I found heaps of sites with recipes. There was one (Huffington Post) that was even simpler - just cake mix and a can of something fizzy and sweet. Interesting that it should come from the Huffington Post. They seemed to think it worked. Maybe the most enticing site was
Most of the sites insisted that you should not stir, but a few said you got better results if you stirred it a little or at least shook it. Epicurious maintains that if you don't mix the cake mix with the liquid then the mix that doesn't touch the liquid remains as cake mix. Nevertheless apparently most sites insist on not mixing the layers. Coles too. There was also the variation of not melting the butter, but cutting it into bits and spreading them over the top. Though I would have thought that if you wanted the cake mix to cook not just lie there, then having the butter and milk liquid filter down would be a way to cook the mix.
Nevertheless it seems that it's not all quite as rosy as it sounds. On the Homemade by Jade site, Jade describes her disaster.
"After baking it for 40 minutes, I removed it from the oven. I looked at it in disbelief, it looked almost exactly like it did when I put it in the oven. The top was powder cake mix with paths of butter poured through them. You could push the powder around with your finger. I was like ???????" Homemade by Jade
There were a whole lot of comments on her site, mostly agreeing with her, summed up by the following:
"A dump cake should yield consistent results (they usually don't) and use real ingredients (they never do)"
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." Katherine Sacks, Epicurious
But look a little further and you will find more adventurous cooks who have played around with the concept, and, still keeping it quick and easy, have used 'real' ingredients. And Katherine Sacks of Epicurious does just that. So if you really want to give it a go follow her advice. And indeed her recipe for a home-made cake mix is most probably a little gem.
And what are sheet cakes? Are they the same thing by a different name. Not quite.
"Classic sheet cake recipes are interesting. You basically bring butter and water to a boil then add in the other ingredients in what seems like a weird order. This strange method results in a super tender and almost spongy texture that’s just delightful. Not to mention it’s super quick and easy!" Tessa Arias, Handle the Heat
The other thing to say about sheet cakes is that they are large. They are basically cakes baked in a very large tray, then iced and decorated and sliced for your crowd of people - a birthday party, a bbq, a fundraiser. And yes as Tessa Arias says you sort of make a batter. First liquids, add dry ingredients, then fruit or whatever. She has a recipe for a very delicious looking salted caramel apple sheet cake for 36 people.
They are not thick round cakes, but flatter ones. A cooking for a crowd thing. And they actually seem to use 'real' ingredients. Huffington Post lists 25 recipes that are worth looking into. This was just one of them.
But for me the ultimate quick and easy cake is Claudia Roden's orange cake. I suppose it's not really quick because you have to boil the oranges for an hour or so, but once that's done (and there is no effort involved in that) it takes another five minutes to process it all together before cooking. And that does taste really, really delicious.
