Pumpkin Crunch Cake makes the perfect pumpkin fall dessert. An easy sheet cake with a crunchy, cake mix topping on top of a delicious pumpkin pie layer. It takes minutes to put together and is full of fall flavors that your family will love!

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Pumpkin Crunch Cake with yellow cake mix

Using a yellow cake mix makes Pumpkin Crunch Cake incredibly easy to whip up. It will take longer for your oven to preheat than to get the cake ready to bake. Made with minimal effort and just a handful of simple ingredients, it’s easy to pull together at the last minute and completely stress-free.

While the yellow cake mix is my favorite, Pumpkin Crunch Cake can also be made with a spice flavored cake mix.

A classic fall dessert

Pumpkin Crunch Cake starts with a crunchy, nutty topping and an incredibly delicious moist cake layer that sits on top of a custard-like pumpkin pie base. All the layers kind of intermingle and swirl together so you can’t always see where one begins and one ends.

It turns into a magical dessert, full of flavor and texture. Top each slice with a dollop of whipped cream and chopped pecans to create the perfect pumpkin dessert that everyone will go crazy over.

The gentler you are getting the cake into the oven, the more separated and distinguishable the layers will be. By happy accident, I discovered if I wasn’t quite as gentle, the more comingled the layers become. You may see the pumpkin layer rising up on the edges. That’s ok! That’s my favorite way to eat it!

The perfect Thanksgiving dessert for a crowd

This Pumpkin Crunch Cake recipe is one that I’ve been preparing as a part of our Thanksgiving dessert lineup for several years. It’s the easiest way to make a fall-flavored dessert for a big crowd that can be made in minutes.

Not only is it super simple to make, it’s also incredibly delicious. Even family members who aren’t crazy about pumpkin pie love this cake.

Pumpkin Dump Cake

A dump cake is a cake where you literally dump a few ingredients into a baking pan, bake it in the oven, and it magically transforms into a delicious dessert.

A dump cake can be made with a variety of ingredients, but most recipes are made with a boxed cake mix and some sort of pie filling, plus butter.

This pumpkin dump cake uses pumpkin as the pie filling. While it uses one more bowl than a traditional dump cake so that you can mix up the pumpkin pie filling, it’s still super quick and super easy.

How to make

To make Pumpkin Crunch Cake, mix up the pumpkin pie filling ingredients (evaporated milk, pumpkin, eggs, sugar, and spices) and pour them into a 9 by 13-inch baking dish.

Sprinkle the cake mix on top of the pumpkin pie filling, then sprinkle the pecans on top. Slowly and gently drizzle the melted butter all over the top.

Bake until it’s golden brown. The aromas in your kitchen will have you swooning.

How to serve and store

Pumpkin Crunch Cake can be served warm, at room temperature, or refrigerated for a few hours.

Top with whipped cream and chopped pecans for a wonderful creamy, crunchy contrast. Or with a scoop of ice cream. Even caramel sauce if you like it really sweet. I personally find it sweet enough, so I use very lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator.

Tips for success

The two most important tips that I can share so that your Pumpkin Crunch Cake comes out perfectly are:

Sprinkle the cake mix on gently in an even layer. You can use your hands to gently smooth it out. The flatter and more even the cake mix layer is, the better the butter can cover all of the cake. Just don’t press down on the cake layer or it might sink into the pumpkin layer.

Drizzle the butter on slowly, covering as much of the cake mix as you can. If you have big lumps of unbuttered cake mix, you might end up with dry, powdery lumps in the final cake.

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