it's like christmas in april!

It's as though my Auntie has a direct link straight into my mind. Or perhaps a window to my inner soul. Or maybe she is just psychic! Whatever the case may be she sent me a recipe I could not resist and made it right away! This is a pretty simple recipe and one many people have made in some form or another before. I myself have made this type of dessert before but never with this particular ingredient. This is a recipe for a "Dump" cake. All the recipes I have ever encountered call for canned pie filling of the fruit variety such as cherry, blueberry, pineapple, strawberry or any combination of the afore mentioned. Never have I come across one calling for pumpkin. I LOVE PUMPKIN! Auntie says she isn't fond of pumpkin pie but really likes this dessert. I give it a bazillion thumbs up. Soooooooooooooo tasty that even hubby took some to work to snack on the next day. He usually doesn't bother dessert after the inital serving the day it's first made. So that's saying a lot. Anyhow, I hope you all really enjoy this as much as we did. It's AWESOME!

Pumpkin Dump Cake
1 large can EASY pumpkin pie mix (the kind with spices in it already)
1 12oz can evaporated milk
3 large eggs
1 box yellow cake mix; preferrably with pudding
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 cup melted butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13 x 9 inch pan. Mix pumpkin pie mix, evaporated milk and eggs together. Pour into pan. Sprinkle cake mix over top of pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle walnuts over top and then pour butter evenly over entire pan. Bake in oven for 1 hour or until set and knife in center comes out clean. Serve warm or cold topped with whipped cream.

My Notes: I love this super easy recipe. It was great for little hands to help out so not only did it taste good it was fun to make with the boys. Auntie notes that she will use 2/3 cup of walnuts over half of the cake for anyone who doesn't like nuts. I too did just half with walnuts but I used halves to give it really big crunch. I also served this with whipped cream but think if you are going to eat it warm it would be just as excellent with vanilla ice cream!

My Other Note......Isn't my place mat pretty? Claudia brought a set of them back for me from Indonesia a handful of years ago and I just adore them. Sooooo beautiful!