With just 5 ingredients and 5 minutes of prep, dessert doesn’t get much easier than this Cherry Dump Cake! Serve with some vanilla ice cream for a quick but crazy delicious treat anytime.
Looking for a quick and easy dessert to whip up in a pinch? You’ll definitely want to keep this Cherry Dump Cake recipe on hand! All you need is some cherry pie filling, cake mix, and butter, though I do add a few extra ingredients for optimal flavor.
I love an easy dessert almost as much as I love an easy dinner, and this dessert recipe is one of the easiest. Just dump (a la “dump” cake) the ingredients into the baking dish, pop it in the oven, and dessert is ready in under an hour. The best part is that this recipe is super flexible. You can change the cake mix and the fruit filling to come up with a new flavor every time.
More easy cherry treats not to miss include our cherry limeade and chocolate cherry smoothie.
What is a Dump Cake?
A dump cake is essentially a recipe where all the ingredients are dumped into a baking dish and then baked. There’s no mixing or preparing batter, usually no cleaning or chopping up any items. Just dump the ingredients one at a time, bake, and enjoy!
What in This Cherry Dump Cake Recipe?
Just 5 ingredients go into this cherry pie filling dump cake. Scroll down to the recipe card below for the exact measurements.
- Cherry pie filling – Our star ingredient.
- Maraschino cherry juice – Enhances the cherry flavor in the dessert.
- Almond extract – This provides an extra punch of cherry flavor. You can substitute with another extract like vanilla or even cherry extract.
- Yellow cake mix – For the topping. Even though cake mix quantities and box sizes have changed, it won’t negatively impact this recipe.
- Salted butter – Helps create the crisp, golden top.
Recipe Tips and Variations
With a recipe this easy, it’s no surprise that there are many ways to customize it.
- Switch up the cake mix topping. You can use any cake mix in place of yellow – I suggest vanilla, white, lemon, devil’s food, milk chocolate, chocolate fudge, or dark chocolate.
- Try a different fruit flavor. Switch out the pie filling with any pie filling you like! This is a base recipe to go off of.
- Add pineapple and/or coconut. Diced pineapple and shredded coconut can be added to the filling for another flavor level.
- Sprinkle with chocolate chips. If you’re a chocolate lover, you could sprinkle the top with chocolate chips in addition to the pecans.
- Skip the maraschino cherry juice. I add the maraschino cherry juice and almond extract for an extra explosive flavor of cherry. The addition of maraschino cherry juice does not make the filling too liquidy, it just adds another dimension of cherry flavor but the recipe will still work perfectly fine without it.
- Substitute the almond extract. If you don’t have almond extract or don’t want to purchase it you can use vanilla, almond, lemon, cherry, or even strawberry in its place, or leave it out entirely.
- Achieve the perfect golden crisp topping. When pouring the melted butter over the top, make sure to spread it out and saturate the cake mix as much as possible. This will ensure the topping is crisp and golden brown after it bakes.
How to Make the Best Cherry Dump Cake
This dump cake recipe comes together in a few quick steps. Scroll down to the printable recipe card for details and measurements, and don’t miss the video below.
- Add the cherry layer. Pour the cherry pie filling into the baking dish. Add the maraschino cherry juice and almond extract. Stir to combine and smooth into an even layer.
- Add the cake mix. Sprinkle the cake mix over the cherry filling.
- Add the butter. Pour the melted butter over the cake mix.
- Bake. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly. Let rest for 15 minutes and enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
Cherry dump cake is best served warm or at room temperature, but you do want to let it sit for at least 15 minutes out of the oven before serving. Otherwise, it’s super hot!
I love to top my dump cake with vanilla ice cream. Some other yummy toppings: chocolate sauce, whipped cream, caramel sauce, powdered sugar, or chocolate chips (then the chocolate chips get all melty on top!)
How to Store, Freeze, and Reheat
- Storing leftovers. Leftover cherry dump cake can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days. Just cover the baking dish with plastic wrap or transfer to an airtight container.
- Reheat. To reheat, pop a serving in the microwave for 30 seconds or so, until warm.
- Freeze. You can also freeze your dump cake for up to 3 months. Wrap in plastic wrap and again in foil. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
More Easy Dessert Recipes:
- Easy Mini Lemon Tarts
- 5 ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
- 3 ingredients Easy Sugar Cookies
- Shirley Temple Cake
- Easy Strawberry Cobbler
- Blueberry Cobbler
I hope you love this delicious and easy recipe – be sure to give it a review below! Also don’t forget to follow Belly Full on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube!
Cherry Dump Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cans cherry pie filling (21 ounces each)
- 1/3 cup maraschino cherry juice
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 3/4 cup salted butter , melted
- vanilla ice cream , for serving, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick spray.
- Pour the cherry pie filling into the baking dish.
- Add the maraschino cherry juice and almond extract. Stir to combine and smooth out the filling into an even layer.
- Sprinkle the cake mix evenly over the filling.
- Pour the melted butter all over the top, and try to saturate as much of the cake mix as possible.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden brown on top and bubbly. Let sit for 15 minutes and serve with some vanilla ice cream!Note: possible variations and storage is listed in the article.
So easy and so tasty!! Better than cherry pie!!
I had everything on hand for this cake except almond extract, so I used vanilla. It was delicious! It is so easy to make too. I didn’t have ice cream so served it with cool whip which was good and cut a few calories! For more crunch though I may add a little more cake mix like one lady suggested (she added a half box of jiffy). Thank you for the delicious recipe.
The whole family loved it!! So easy. I served some portions with vanilla ice and some with cool whip.
Boxed cake mixes have gotten smaller so I add @half a box of jiffy yellow cake mix to bring up to the 15+ounces. My cherry pie lovers devour this cake! Thx!
I have fresh cherries and a cherry litter. How do I add liquid to the level of pie filling
Hi Jean – I’d need to do further recipe testing to give you exact measurements.
This was so incredibly easy and yummy. Definitely a new go-to for an quick dessert.
So that I don’t waste the maraschino cherries, can I add some along with the juice and the pie filling?
Sure.
I’ve done several dump cake recipes that are cherry, and this one is for the best
This was SO GOOD! I added in a can of crushed pineapple.
Hi Amy,
I made this with a Pillsbury Sugar Free chocolate cake mix and no sugar added cherry pie filling due to diabetes in the family. It was great! Everybody could eat it and they loved it. Thanks! (also had sugar free whipped topping)
I loved it. I came here because my grandmother used to make this. I’ve made it through the years but forgot the temperature setting. I love your idea about adding almond extract or Marchiano cherry juice to give it a kick of flavor. I opted for traditional cherry pie filling but I added a can of crushed pineapple to the fruit blend. I finished the top off with chopped pecans. I live in Alabama and so we top everything with pecans because they are plentiful this time of year. Thank you for the recipe. Jennifer from Alabama
Do you substitute 1 can of the cherry pie filling with the can of pineapple?
I’m also curious about the 1 can of crushed pineapple instead of two cherry.
Easy and delicious!
Made with blueberry pie filling and vanilla. Really terrific dessert; fast, easy, delicious.
Made this recipe the same day I found it. LOL. It’s just fantastic. And so so easy. Love it!