Dutch Oven Apple Cobbler With Cake Mix

Have you ever wondered how to cook a Dutch Oven Apple Cobbler With Cake Mix? I used to wonder that all the time and never thought it was possible until I discovered it one day. Now I can’t live without it. It’s become a staple at every pot luck feast and camp out event I go to. Are you ready for the best apple cobbler recipe ever? Let’s get started!

Apple Cobbler with Spice Cake

• Level: Intermediate
• Total: 2 hr 30 min

• Prep: 30 min
• Inactive: 1 hr 15 min
• Cook: 45 min
• Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

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8 cups peeled and sliced firm, tart apples such as Granny Smith

1 cup sugar

Pinch salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3 tablespoons butter, diced

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup chopped walnuts

Spice Cake:

1/3 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg, well beaten

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Serving suggestion: warm caramel sauce

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. To make the apple topping: Grease a 12-inch Dutch oven or a large, deep baking dish. Add the apples, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter and flour. Mix well then sprinkle with walnuts.
3. To make the cake: In a large bowl or mixer, cream together the shortening and brown sugar. Mix in the egg, sour cream and vanilla. Sift the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and salt together into a bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the shortening mixture and mix thoroughly. Spoon the cake batter over the apple topping then bake until cake is nicely browned, begins to pull from the sides of the pan and a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly, about 40 minutes. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes then turn it out onto a large plate. Serve slices of cake warm or at room temperature drizzled with hot caramel sauce, if desired.

Cook’s Note

This cake can also be cooked the traditional way¿with hot coals. Put the lid on the Dutch oven then rest it on 10 hot coals. Place 15 more hot coals on top and cook until the cake is done, about 45 minutes.

APPLE DUMP CAKE

The incredibly tasty Apple Dump Cake is a super easy dessert, despite the not-so-great name! Apple pie filling, cake mix, and butter are layered in a 9 x 13 pan and baked until golden. This is a perfect dessert for last-minute entertaining!

APPLE DUMP CAKE RECIPE

Talk about an easy dessert to put together on short notice! That’s the wonderful thing about any dump cake, and this apple version turns out beautifully! My apple pie dump cake is a very popular family dessert, no matter the time of year! 

Tender sliced apples are topped with a boxed yellow cake mix and melted butter, then baked until golden. Serve it up nice and hot, or allow your dump cake to cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

❔ WHAT IS

Any ‘dump cake’ is a cake that is made using ingredients that are literally dumped in a baking dish (or crockpot, or instant pot) together. There is no mixing required, and no extra dishes or mixing bowls are used.

Typically, fruit or canned fruit is used as the base of the cobbler-type dish. The base is topped with a boxed cake mix and a wet ingredient like melted butter or lemon-lime soda.

So my apple dump cake is an apple pie filling and cake mix dump cake. The flavor and textures are surprisingly good, and your friends won’t guess that it’s a cake mix recipe!

🥘 INGREDIENTS

• 40 oz Apple Pie Filling (2 20 to 21 oz cans, for fresh apples see notes below)
• 1 box Yellow Cake Mix (white cake mix or spice cake mix also work)
• ¾ cup salted Butter (melted – or use 18 oz Sprite/7 Up/Sierra Mist lemon lime soda)

*Be sure to see the recipe card below for ingredients, amounts & instructions!*

USING FRESH APPLES INSTEAD OF CANNED APPLES

The baking time is long enough that even a semi-firm apple variety would work quite well.

1. I would suggest peeling your apples before using them, and you would need to add some sugar and spices.
2. Use a ½ cup of sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, and a ¼ teaspoon allspice with your peeled, cored, and sliced fresh apples. You will need roughly 6 cups of cut apples, or enough to cover the bottom layer of a 9 x 13 baking pan.
3. Combine these ingredients in a medium-size mixing bowl and substitute them in the directions for the canned apple pie filling.

🔪 STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

1. Start with preheating your oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and coating a 9 x 13 baking pan or 3-quart casserole dish with butter, or a non-stick cooking spray. Distribute the canned apple pie filling over the bottom of your baking dish.
2. Next, pour the boxed yellow cake mix over the bottom layer of apple pie filling. Gently shake the pan, or tamp it down on the counter to evenly distribute the cake mix.
3. Distribute the melted butter evenly over the top of the boxed cake mix, use a spoon if needed, or drizzle the melted butter into the pan.
4. Bake in your preheated oven at 350ºF (175ºC) for 45 to 50 minutes, or until golden brown on the top and bubbling around the edges of the baking dish or pan. It is up to you whether you enjoy this dessert straight out of the oven, or after allowing it to cool for about 15 minutes.

I opt to eat it while it’s nice and hot and serve my apple dump cake with either whipped cream or some vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

💭 ANGELA’S TIPS & RECIPE NOTES

• If desired, additional spices and/or a teaspoon of vanilla extract can be added to the apple pie filling layer. A dusting of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, or allspice, are all wonderful spices to stir in quickly. *I love nutmeg, and highly suggest a nice bit of freshly grated nutmeg to this delicious apple dump cake!
• Yellowcake mix is my preferred combination in this recipe, however, white cake mix and spice cake mix are also great flavor options!
• A 20-ounce bottle of lemon-lime soda, such as 7 Up, Sprite, or Sierra Mist, is also a popular switch for the butter. My family likes this version as well but prefers the buttery taste over the soda cake mix cobbler.

Easy Cobbler Recipes for All Your Summer Fruit

We’ll grant that summer fruit pies are sublime, but honestly, who has time to mess with rolling, chilling, and crimping a pie crust when there are pools to splash in and steamy summer novels to read? Not us.

Enter the humble-but-delicious cobbler. This crumbly treat requires minimal prep — just a bit of mixing and plopping (we’re going with “plopping” as the official culinary term).

Crisps, crumbles, and buckles are all considered part of the cobbler family — along with grunts, slumps, sonkers, and pandowdies (not even joking). Just like a summer family reunion, we’re rounding up alll the relatives, however odd their names.

So fire up the oven or campfire, it’s time to make dessert!

1. Peach cobbler

Was it even summer if you didn’t dig into a bowl of peach cobbler? This recipe for the classic seasonal dessert features juicy, ripe peaches (in season between April and October) in its bottom half, and a surprise ingredient for moistness in its top: yogurt! Finish it off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or froyo to make it even more summery.

2. Strawberry cobbler

A traditional cobbler is a mixture of big chunks of fruit, thickened with a little flour, sweetened with sugar, and topped with a biscuit-type topping. Cobblers got their name because the baked crust was bumpy and uneven like cobblestones in the streets of Great Britain, where the dish was invented.

3. Easy berry cobbler

Any time “easy” and “dessert” are mentioned together, we’re down to try it. This easy berry cobbler is no exception. Blackberries, raspberries, or blueberries (or a combo of all three) make a tart, antioxidant-rich base beneath a buttery crust. The best part: You don’t have to peel or slice berries.

4. Strawberry rhubarb tahini crisp

This crisp creates an unusual twist on the old-fashioned strawberry rhubarb by using tahini instead of butter or another fat in the crumble. The result: a delightfully dairy-free option. The recipe author also recommends using a splash of rosewater in the filling, adding a fragrant element to this upgraded classic recipe.

5. Easy cherry cobbler

There’s our favorite word again: easy. Here, 6 cups of sweet cherries get popped into an oven-safe skillet, where they release their juices during baking. Meanwhile, the biscuit topping gets some Southern flair (not to mention a fiber upgrade) from a bit of corn meal. Serve this one as the perfect ending to a summer barbecue.

6. Blueberry buckle

A buckle is where coffee cake meets fruit crisp. A muffin-type filling is topped with a streusel mixture for a crunchy texture on top of a tender, sweet cake. (It’s probably the best way to eat cake for breakfast, in our opinion.)

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the name: It comes from the way the cake-like topping will crack and “buckle” while baking.

7. Mom’s apple cobbler with buttermilk biscuit topping

You might think of apples as autumn fruits, but believe it or not, many varieties are ready to pick as early as July. This apple cobbler makes the most of the late summer harvest by seasoning the fruits with cinnamon and nutmeg — but consider cardamom as an interesting flavor alternative.

If you’d like to mix things up even more, add rhubarb or dried cranberries to the filling, or drizzle the finished product with caramel sauce.

8. Vegan cherry berry crumble

A crumble is another name for a crisp. Both desserts happen to be relatively easy to make vegan! This cherry berry crumble combines cherries and mixed berries for an explosion of summer flavors without any animal products.

By using gluten-free oats in the topping, you can even make this one gluten-free. Arrowroot powder thickens the berry mixture, and the topping contains no wheat.

Cast Iron Dutch Oven Cobbler

Ingredients

2 Cans of fruit pie filling, canned peaches, or canned pineapple

1 box of Yellow Cake Mix- possibly 2 boxes if your dutch oven is larger (12 inch) 

1 stick of butter, sliced into pats

1 can of 7-Up, or Sprite

Directions

1. Prepare about 28-30 coals so that they are ready to cook on
2. Oil your dutch oven well before starting
3. Open both cans of fruit filling and pour into the bottom of the dutch oven 
4. Spread the dry cake mix evenly over top of the filling. A larger dutch oven may require more than 1 box  
5. Spread the pats of butter evenly over the top of the cake mix
6. Pour the soda pop over the entire mixture. 
7. DO NOT STIR THE INGREDIENTS!
8. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and place on about 12-14 coals, spread evenly under the oven. 
9. Place the remaining 14 hot coals on top of the Dutch oven lid. 
10. Bake for about  20 minutes. Then rotate the oven a half turn. Bake another 20 minutes and then check the top of the cake. It should be a nice baked brown color and will have the fruit juices bubbling up through. If it does not seem done, let it bake for another 15 minutes and check again. With all of the moist ingredients it is not likely you will burn this recipe. 
11. Once done, just scoop into a bowl with some ice cream!
12. Put leftovers (if you ever have any) into an airtight container and it will keep for days.