I learned to make this cake at Girl Scout Camp Wah-Shah-She in Osage County, Oklahoma, but it turned out a lot better baked in the dining hall oven than baked in a Dutch oven on the campfire! Although cake mix and pie filling contain some unhealthy additives and I rarely use them now, this recipe was great when I didn’t have access to a fully equipped kitchen–for example, when I lived in a college dormitory (with a stove in an alcove off the lounge) and would occasionally get invited to a potluck event.

You can use any combination of cake mix flavor and pie filling flavor. White cake with alternating blobs of cherry and blueberry makes a nice patriotic dessert. Yellow cake mix with blueberry results in some distressing shades of greenish gray, ideal for Halloween!

To bake one cake, you will need:

• 1 packaged cake mix, or dry ingredients for your favorite cake recipe
• 15 oz. pie filling–the canned type, or some sweetened fruit concoction you’ve made yourself!
• 1 egg (optional, but cake will be less fluffy without it)
• cooking oil in the amount requested by the cake mix, plus a little for greasing the pan
• 1/4 cup flour (optional, but cake will come out of the pan more easily if you flour the pan)
• mixing bowl
• rubber scraper
• cake pan, approximately 9″x13″
• spoon that will fit into the can of pie filling
• chopstick, fork, or other poking device

Thoroughly coat inside of pan with oil. Sprinkle flour in the pan, then pick it up and tilt it and bang on the sides until flour is spread evenly over the oiled surface. Preheat oven to 375F.

Combine cake mix, egg, and oil in bowl. Add water in tiny quantities until mixture is just thin enough that you can spread it in the pan; it should be thicker than ordinary cake batter. Make sure it covers the bottom of the pan and is a bit higher along the sides.

With spoon, scoop pie filling into a number of blobs on top of the batter. Use spoon to mix pie filling partially into batter, making swirly designs.

Bake for maximum amount of time directed on cake mix box. Use poking device to check if cake is done all the way through; if not, continue baking and check every 5 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature.