Pumpkin Spice Pudding Dump Cake

I was a cotton headed ninny muggins and forgot to take a picture of this dessert. Please forgive my forgetful nature!

This recipe was adapted from the chocolate dump pudding cake from Eat Live Run.  I thought it was the same recipe that was made for dessert at our church youth group dinner, but that recipe set up quite differently.  This one was a lot more pudding-like in texture.  The one I had at church was definitely more cake-y and bar-like.  I'm pretty sure that recipe called for cook and serve pudding mix, and not the instant that this one required.

My changes to this recipe were to swap out the chocolate pudding for pumpkin spice pudding.  I picked it up over Thanksgiving and was sick of the pudding box staring at me in the pantry.  I thought that vanilla cake mix would make a nice flavor pairing, so I switched that out for the chocolate cake mix.  Finally, I used a mixture of white and butterscotch chips instead of the chocolate chips the recipe calls for.

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The cake tasted ok, but the texture was weird.  I don't know.  Couldn't put my finger on it.  I guess I was just looking for a more cake like texture, like the ones I had at church.  I'm sure if I had this version first, there wouldn't have been an issue with the texture.

If I were to make this recipe again, I'd mix the chips in completely before baking.  I left half of them out to put on top.  I thought this would make the dessert look nicer.  Unfortunately, the white chips on the top of the cake turned brown before the center had set.  I ended up picking most of them off the top of the cake.  Good thing I was only making this for my family, and not as something to serve for guests.

So let this be a lesson to you.  If you are going to make this dessert with white chips, don't put them on the top of the bars or they will burn!

Pumpkin Spice Pudding Dump Cake adapted from Eat Live Run
1 vanilla cake mix
1 small package pumpkin spice pudding
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine pudding with milk stirring as package suggests.  Add cake mix (just dry mix–don’t add anything else) and stir well to combine (batter will be thick). Stir in chips.  Smooth batter into a greased 9x13pan.Bake 30 min, or til edges pull away from sides.