Easy Pumpkin Crumble Cake

Greetings, friends! About a week ago I was busy making this pumpkin crumble cake to have for Thanksgiving dessert with my family the next day. The adjective easy is incredibly accurate for this dessert. Talk about simple! This recipe was just what I was looking for - no fuss ingredients, takes very little time, and delicious, of course! Delicious is always a requirement.

This recipe is from the tried and true, always yummy blog, Our Best Bites (I've mentioned this one a few times before). The original recipe can be found here but I've written it below for you as well. Note: part of what makes this so easy is that it uses yellow cake mix. Although I do love making things from scratch, you also know that I love a shortcut from time to time (as evidenced by my beloved cake mix cookies here, here, and here!).

Ingredients:

-1 box yellow or white cake mix (I used an 18.25 oz. box of yellow)

-1 to 2 sticks of butter (see notes in instructions)

-1 can pumpkin (15 oz.)

-2 eggs

-1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

-1 tsp. cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

-1/4 tsp. ginger

-1/8 tsp. cloves

-1/8 tsp. nutmeg

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/3 cup chopped pecans

-1/2 tsp. additional cinnamon for topping

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 cups of the cake mix in a bowl. Cut in 3 Tbsp. of chilled butter. I used my fingers (as the original recipe suggests) to crumble the butter into small pieces. Place this cake mix and butter mixture in the bottom of a 13 x 9 pan (I greased mine even though the recipe didn't specify) and press flat with your hands/fingers.

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and spices until smooth. Pour on top of the cake mixture in the pan. Take the rest of the dry cake mix and mix in 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Sprinkle it all over top of the pumpkin mixture. Before you put the remaining cake mix in the pan though, measure it so you know how much you have, and here's why: for every cup of cake mix, you'll need about 3 Tbsp. of melted butter. Since cake mixes vary in size (they're not all 18.25 oz.!), you may have a different amount of cake mix left than the next person after you use the first 2 cups of it for the bottom layer.

After sprinkling the cake mix and cinnamon mixture on top of the pumpkin layer, sprinkle the pecans evenly over top. Then, depending on how much cake mix you sprinkled on, melt the appropriate amount of butter and then drizzle the butter evenly over top of everything. That's it!

SPICES. :) I used more than what the recipe listed.

Bake for about 40 minutes or so, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Serve it warm, chilled, or room temp - whatever you prefer! I served it room temp on Thanksgiving. I also served it with cool whip, but you could definitely make your own whipped topping or serve it with classic vanilla ice cream or any other yummy ice cream flavor. Options options!!

Now, I have to confess that I somehow forgot to add the salt. Whoops! But, as far as the various ingredients go, that was a good one to forget since the lack of salt wouldn't affect the taste as much as say, a lack of pumpkin would. ;) Also, I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I just added a little extra of everything (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg).

Super simple and super tasty. It was a nice change from the more traditional pumpkin pie (even though I love that too!!).

I made this the day before Thanksgiving which worked out well since I didn't take up any space in the kitchen or need to use any dishes on Thanksgiving day. I stayed out of my mom's way as she was cooking. :)

Easy as pie! ;)