Name: Caramel Apple Dump Cake
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 55 min
Ingredients: 40 oz apple pie filling, (equals two 20-ounce cans); ½ bag Werther's Original Chewy Caramels, (equals one 10.8-ounce bag); 1 box super moist butter yellow cake mix; 1 cup salted butter, (melted); ½ cup whole milk

Being asked to bring dessert is the easy part. Working out what feeds 12 people, travels in the pan it baked in and still only takes 10 minutes to put together is the rest of it. Caramel apple dump cake does all three.

A bowl of apple cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce sits on a table, reminiscent of a classic Caramel Apple Dump Cake. In the background are a spoon, apples, caramel candies, and a baking dish of cobbler, evoking the comforting flavors found in any delicious Caramel Apple Dump Cake Recipe.

Pour The Butter, Do Not Dot It

Dry, powdery patches of cake mix on top are what goes wrong with dump cakes, and they come from the butter.

Pats of cold butter laid across the top only melt straight down. Wherever there is a gap between them, the mix underneath stays dry, and it is still dry when the cake comes out.

Melted butter is poured from a measuring cup onto a layer of dry cake mix in a glass baking dish on a white countertop, preparing the base for a delicious Caramel Apple Dump Cake.

Melted butter mixed with milk pours instead. Go slowly and work across the whole surface, and press any dry patch you can still see down under the liquid with the back of a spoon. My independent recipe tester, Teresia, tested it this way twice and had no dry spots either time.

This is the same technique I’ve been adapting across all of my dump cake recipes:

Cut The Caramels Straight Into The Pan

Cut caramels stick to each other. A reader making a version of this cut hers into a measuring cup first, and by the time she had finished they had fused into one lump she had to pull apart over the apples.

Cut them over the pan and let the pieces fall where they land. Scattering them afterward is easier than separating them.

A glass baking dish filled with sliced apples topped with small caramel candy pieces, ready to be baked, sits on a white marble countertop—perfect for making a delicious Caramel Apple Dump Cake Recipe.

They cut more cleanly cold. Straight from the refrigerator the knife goes through without dragging, and the pieces stay separate longer.

What The Caramels Actually Do

They do not melt into a smooth caramel layer, and no caramel does in a dump cake.

Warm out of the oven, you get strings of caramel running through the apples and soft pieces you can barely feel. As it cools, those pieces firm back up into caramel again.

Whether any of this is a problem depends on what you want. If you like biting into a piece of caramel, this is the version to make. If you want it smooth all the way through, use sauce instead.

Use Caramel Sauce If You Want It Smooth

Swap the caramels for about half a cup of caramel sauce drizzled over the apples before the cake mix goes on.

Teresia baked both versions side by side. Warm, she could not tell them apart. Cooled, the sauce version stayed soft while the caramels went chewy, and that was the one she preferred.

A glass baking dish filled with golden-brown Caramel Apple Dump Cake, one corner scooped out with a metal serving spoon, revealing a gooey, caramel-like filling inside. The dish sits on a marble surface with a striped cloth nearby.

Two Things Not To Use

Caramel bits stay rubbery rather than softening, and they were the only version in testing that came out worse than the others.
Kraft caramels work, but they taste flatter than Werther’s and every one of them has to be unwrapped.

Serve It Warm

This is the difference between people asking for the recipe and people being polite about it.

Warm, the caramel is soft, the apples are loose and it spoons out easily. Cold, the caramel is chewy and the whole thing sets up firmer in the pan. It is still good cold. It is much better warm.

If it has been sitting, put the pan back in a 350°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or microwave a bowl of it for about 30 seconds. Either one brings the caramel back.

A serving of apple cobbler with a golden crumb topping is on a white plate, surrounded by more cobbler, caramel candies, and a small pitcher of sauce on a light surface—perfect for anyone craving the cozy flavors of a Caramel Apple Dump Cake.

Recipe Testing Notes

This recipe was originally published in September 2021. Teresia tested this recipe twice, in June and July 2026.

Her first test compared Werther’s chewy caramels against caramel sauce. The second compared Kraft caramels against Kraft caramel bits. Both tests used the melted butter and milk method, and both came out with no dry cake mix on top and no extra time needed past 45 minutes. The results of those tests are reflected in the updated recipe below.

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Caramel Apple Dump Cake

5 from 5 votes

Caramel apple dump cake with no dry patches on top. Melted butter and milk pour over the cake mix instead of sitting on it in cold pats.

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 45

Total Time 55

Servings

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Ingredients

40 oz apple pie filling, equals two 20-ounce cans
½ bag Werther's Original Chewy Caramels, equals one 10.8-ounce bag
1 box super moist butter yellow cake mix
1 cup salted butter, melted
½ cup whole milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.
Dump both cans of apple pie filling into the baking dish. Smooth with a spatula.
Using ½ of the 10.8 ounce bag of caramels, cut each caramel into 3 or 4 pieces and sprinkle them over the top of the apples.
Top with dry cake mix. Smooth with a spatula.
Mix together the melted butter and milk.
Slowly pour the butter mixture over the top of the cake mix. Do not leave any dry spots.
Place the cake the oven and let it bake uncovered for 45 minutes.
After 23 minutes (approx. halfway) rotate the pan.
The cake is done when it's golden brown on top and apple is bubbling along the edges.