The cherries aren't visible in this photo, but they're in there somewhere.
I did the most bizarre thing today, or at least something that was very much out of character for me. i went into my parents' pantry, plucked a few ingredients, and produced a dump cake. I didn't eat it because it looked positively disgusting to e, but my brother, cousin, dad, and mom liked it.
I will now channel my friend Katie's friend Voula and will tell you exactly how I made my prize dump cake even though it's arguably the last thing on the planet anyone wants to know.
I started with a basic brownie mix. It was about as basic as brownie mixes go; in fact, it was a store-brand brownie mix. I poured it into a mixing bowl with one quarter cup of oil, one, egg, and one half can of Pepsi, and the juice from two jars of maraschino cherries. I mixed it all lightly for about ninety seconds. Into a 9" by 12" Pyrex baking dish, which I lightly sprayed with cooking spray, I scattered the two jars of maraschino cherries. Then I poured the batter over the cherries in the Pyrex baking dish. I baked the concoction for 37 minutes at 350 degrees. Actually I baked it at 315 degrees because my mom's oven runs about 10% too warm.
I used the Texas Sheet Cake recipe for frosting, which involved bringing 1/4/ cup butter, 3 tbsp cocoa, and 3 tbsp buttermilk to a boil, then stirring in just over 2 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla. The recipe calls for nuts in the frosting, but my family doesn't like nuts in their frosting. They're nutty enough as it is, I suppose. The frosting took longer than the cake, but it made the cake much better, according to those who ate it.
Anyway, it's all gone now, so someone thought it was good.
I still don't know what possessed me to do that. My dad said next time iI should try pouring brandy on top of it before I frost it. I'm not sure that would be an improvement.
My friend Knotty blogged recently about the Dump Cakes cookbook and the diva who is eating her way to the bank on the backs of all those who cannot resist a quick comfort food fix. Count this as one more metaphorical train wreck from which I could not avert my eyes. I didn't buy the book, but I had no choice but to read all about it.
As Knotty so aptly pointed out, Ms. Cathy Mitchell looks the part of the Dump Cake Diva. Had there been a police lineup featuring a as many as a thousand frumpy hausfraus, I would've rooted her out in less than a minute. She is herself the veritable personification of the dump cake, if such a thing is possible.
Why would anyone want to make or eat a dump cake? I can ask the question with perspective, as I once ate about three bites of a dump cake that my own mother, in a fit of schizophrenia, PMS, or some related malady, concocted one wintry afternoon. I typically would not touch, much less eat, such a monstrosity, but my dad was feeling especially spendthrifty that day. He offered me one hundred dollars if I could consume three bites of the vile mixture, which looked to me to be midway between witch's brew and human barf, without myself throwing it up. This went down at a time when I was not earning much money. I plugged my nose, bit the bullet so to speak, and took three bites of the dump cake. It was bad, though I've tasted worse, and I was immediately one hundred dollars richer as a result.
Under ordinary circumstances, eating anything like dump cake would be practically against my religion. I don't like casseroles, and a dump cake is most certainly the dessert equivalent to the Satanic invention so benignly dubbed "the casserole." Food should not touch. Veggies, if one must eat them, go on one section of a plate. Fruit goes on another. Rice or potatoes have another spot still, and meat occupies its own. Never the twain, or, for that matter, any of the foods, shall meet. Period. End of discussion. I don't even eat cheeseburgers because I would never allow my burger to touch my cheese. If fine china came with raised dividers similar to those on cafeteria trays, that is the china for which I would register if I ever had occasion to register for china.
My mom's dump cake consisted of yellow cake mix, butter, thawed frozen apricots, pecans, and club soda. In retrospect, though I spewed forth venomous words to the contrary at the time, my mother's prized dump cake is not even on my Donner Party List. I'd choose the fruity baked disaster over the late Tamsen Donner's leg in a heartbeat.
If I haven't yet sold you on the lack of necessity for ownership of Dump Cakes, please stay with me for just one more minute, in which I shall demonstrate to you that you have no need of such a compilation, as you already possess the innate knowledge to make every dump cake of which The Dump Cake Diva could possibly conceive. Just follow my simple formula and use your imagination.
The formula is as follows: 1 dry cake mix + 1 half-cup of a fat source + 1 one fruit/pudding/nut/jello component +, if you're feeling especially adventurous, 8 to 12 ounces of a bubbling libation. Trust me: the formula will yield, for all intents and purposes, the same result every time. You do not need to invest in a tree-genocidal volume; what you concoct will be just as tasty (which isn't saying a whole hell of a lot) and every bit as authentic as a dump cake product as if The Dump Cake Diva had recorded it herself by dipping an ostrich feather into blueberry juice to pen the recipe.
Example: Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Pour 2 cups or sliced fresh or frozen strawberries into a Pyrex dish. Pour one dry white cake mix over strawberries. Top the strawberries with one cube of melted butter, minus one tablespoon, and pour 1/3 cup of champagne or sparkling wine evenly over mixture. Top with 1/4 cup toasted coconut. Bake at 350 degrees. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream if desired, and serve while warm.
I just came up with that recipe off the top of my head. I'm sure it's not good, but it's probably not a whole lot more bad than anything you would likely fine in The Dump Cake Diva's book. Donate the money you will save by not buying the book either to the Red Cross, or, if you have a problem with the Red Cross, forward the cash to me personally. I promise not to complain.
Edited to add my testimony that my formula for dump cake is THE one true dump cake recipe on the face of the Earth, and that all other dump cake recipes are imposters that are inspired of, by, and for Beelzebub himself. In the name of cheese and mice, amen.
