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This Lemon Dump Cake is an easy dessert made with yellow cake mix and lemon pie filling and butter. Lemon lovers love this delicious dessert, and this easy cake recipe is sure to be a family favorite!
Table of Contents
Lemon Dump Cake without Cream Cheese
If you’re looking for easy dessert recipes for summer, you’ll love this easy lemon dump cake recipe. This easy recipe is bursting with lemon flavor, uses only 3 ingredients, and it’s basically sunshine on a plate! My recipe for lemon dump cake does not use cream cheese, so it’s light, tart and very lemony!
Dump cakes are easy to make with few ingredients and are very budget friendly. They are perfect for holidays and potlucks and can easily feed a crowd! Plus, you can change the flavor simply by using a different filling.
If you’re not a lemon fan, check out some of our other dump cake recipes, including Strawberry Dump Cake, Peach Dump Cake, Apple Dump Cake , and Apple Pie Cake , Caramel Apple Cake, Pumpkin Dump Cake, Pineapple Dump Cake and Blueberry Dump Cake!
Ingredients
You only need a few simple ingredients for this 3 ingredient cake recipe. You can find them in a grocery store if you don’t have these pantry staples. Full amounts are in the printable recipe card below.
- Can lemon pie filling or lemon creme filling — 2 cans of lemon pie filling for this recipe.
- Box yellow cake mix — any brand of boxed cake mix is fine.
- Butter — salted butter or unsalted butter cut into thin slices
Note — If you only have 1 can of pie filling, use a square baking dish and half of your box cake mix and enough butter to cover the top of the cake.
How to Make Lemon Dump Cake
First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees f. Then, grease a baking pan with butter or non stick cooking spray.
Spoon the lemon pie filling into the baking dish. Spread the lemon filling evenly on the bottom of the baking dish.
Next, sprinkle the dry cake mix over the pie filling. Gently spread the cake mix evenly over the lemon layer.
Finally, slice a stick of butter and another half stick of butter. Place the thin pats of butter in even rows on top of the cake mix.
You can fill in any gaps with small slivers of butter–just keep the butter pats in a single layer. Butter should cover the entire top of the dry cake mix, and you won’t get dry cake mix spots this way.
As the cake bakes, the butter melts into the dry mix and forms a delicious, buttery, super moist crust!
Baking Time
Place the cake into the preheated oven. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Every oven is different, though, so you may need a few more minutes. You can add more butter during the baking process if there are large dry spots.
After the cake is done baking, remove from the oven and let it cool down a little before serving.
Variations
There are a couple great ways to customize this delicious dessert!
Make a lemon cream cheese dump cake by cutting up a block of cream cheese and adding cream cheese cubes on top of the lemon pie filling. It’ll add some texture and a mellower flavor to the cake.
Instead of yellow cake mix, use lemon cake mix or vanilla cake mix or white cake mix.
For a lemon blueberry dump cake, you can either use 1 can of blueberry pie filling in place of the lemon pie filling, or simply serve the lemon dump cake with fresh blueberries or puree on top.
You can make your own pie filling or homemade lemon curd in place of canned pie filling.
Serve your dump cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and some Cool Whip, whipped cream, lemon zest, or powdered sugar on top!
How to Store and Reheat
Store any leftover lemon dump cake in an airtight container or covered with plastic wrap. It’ll last 3 to 4 days–if you can resist it for that long!
You can leave the cake out at room temperature if your kitchen is cooler, but I like to keep mine refrigerated, as it holds up better.
Enjoy your leftovers cold, room temperature, or reheated lightly in the microwave on low power.
Recipe Tip
Do not make the cake according to package directions. You are using dry cake mix on top of the lemon filling.
Make sure to spread the cake mix evenly on top of the pie filling so that there are not clumps of dry cake mix along the sides of the cake pan.
I find using slices of butter placed evenly on top of the dump cake works better than pouring melted butter over the cake mix. You won’t get dry areas of cake mix this way.
If you only have 1 can of pie filling, use a square baking dish and half of your box cake mix and enough butter to cover the top of the cake.
More Lemon Desserts
Try my Easy Lemon Bars or Easy Lemonade Kool-Aid Pie or Lemon Crinkle Cookies next. And check out more easy desserts your family will love!
Dump Cake FAQ
Yes. You can make a dump cake up to a day ahead of time without the top crust getting too soft.
Not always, but it depends on the filling. A 3 ingredient lemon dump cake without cream cheese does not need to be refrigerated, but a lemon cake with cream cheese should be stored in the refrigerator. If your kitchen is very warm, store the cake in the refrigerator.
Easy Lemon Dump Cake
Ingredients
- 2 21 oz cans lemon pie filling
- 1 15.25 oz box yellow cake mix
- 1½ sticks butter thinly sliced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Grease a 9×13 baking dish with butter or non-stick spray
- Spoon lemon pie filling into the baking dish, and spread evenly with spatula.
- Sprinkle dry cake mix over pie filling, and spread with a spatula or knife so that it covers the filling
- Place pats of butter in neat rows over cake mix, and bake uncovered for 45 to 50 minutes or until top is golden brown and filling is hot and bubbly
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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This delicious recipe was first published in 2022 and updated in 2024.
Putting the butter on top the cake mix in patties left areas of mix that were dry after cake was done. So, the next time I melted the butter and poured it all over the top of the cake mix and i came out perfect. I HIGHLY recommend melting the butter!!!!
I found the opposite to be true — so that’s why I recommend adding pats of butter instead of melting it. You have to make sure the butter pats are close together and cover the top of the cake.
I only have 1 can of lemon pie filling and I noticed that you said to just use half the cake mix, but I was wondering if the bake time should be less.
The bake time will be the same — be sure to use a square baking dish instead of a 9×13 pan.
Good morning, I don’t have canned lemon pie filling only box version, would I need 2 boxes or 1 ( 212g per box)?
I’m not sure exactly how that would convert, but a can of pie filling is about 21 oz or 1.5 to 2 cups. Hope this helps.
How much lemon curd would you need to replace the lemon pie filling (which is hard to find where we live)?
Each can of pie filling is around 21 oz or about 1.5 to 2 cups. Hope this helps. 🙂
Made this for the ladies group yesterday. Everyone loved it! So simple to make!
This Lemon Dump Cake was so delicious and so easy to make!
So easy and I love how creamy this cake is! Will make again!
Such an amazing cake! It was so hard to resist!
Really love the lemon flavors! And it’s so easy to make.
This is the perfect easy cake! And so delicious!