Dumping Delicious Dessert

As of this writing, it's September... and while I know this will post in January, I'm planning for something in November. Talk about mixed it... Anyway. I help at GEMS, our girls' club at church, and we were looking for a service project our girls could help with. I contacted our Food Pantry at church and we came up with a very fun idea. Our Food Pantry recipients would be receiving a turkey and potatoes in November, it would be great if the girls could package up ingredients for some sort of dessert. Something that could be made from non-perishable items and would be a yummy addition to Thanksgiving dinner.
I went back and forth and searched to the ends of the internet... well ok I didn't really do that, but I did some research. I knew about dump cakes but they always have melted butter poured over - butter is not non-perishable. I opted for an Apple Pie Dump Cake and had the crazy idea of replacing the butter with apple juice. I knew I couldn't just hope this would work - testing would be required. This is a hardship my family was all about. We dumped the ingredients in, smelled the amazing smells from the oven, let it sit in front of us as we ate our dinner, then dug in. Just for a baseline, my family is not always up for dessert. Sometimes yes, but not multiple servings of it. This was a multiple serving kind of dessert. We loved it. I didn't miss the butter at all and the apple juice really did add more moisture to the cake mix and it baked up great. The top of the cake was still somewhat dry but honestly, it was like a crumb topping. So good. Leftovers of this get soggy, so it's best right out of the oven, but a great and easy dessert even for picky dessert eaters.

Apple Pie Dump Cake

Ingredients
1 (21 ounce) can apple pie filling
1 (15.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
2 (6 oz) apple juice boxes

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Pour pie filling into a 8x8 or 9x9-inch baking dish. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over apple pie filling and top with apple juice.
Bake in the preheated oven until the top starts to turn brown, about 50 minutes. Cool cake 15 minutes before serving.