This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of PAM Cooking Spray.
It’s my favorite time of year! The weather is cooler, the holidays are coming and I get to bake delicious food to share with my friends and family! I’ve had this Pumpkin Crunch recipe stashed away in my Gramma’s recipe box for years. The internet is a funny place though. You think you have a recipe that’s unique… only to find out a zillion other folks’ Grammas have been claiming the same recipe — I guess it’s just that good! I sure won’t blame Gramma for trying to pass it off as her own, this dessert is divine! Of course, I added a few things to make it my own.
First off, instead of greasing the pan, I reach for my favorite can of PAM Cooking Spray! The Baking PAM works perfectly for all of my baked desserts.
Unlike the bargain-store brands, the Original, Butter and Baking PAM Cooking Sprays leave less residue buildup on my baking dishes and cookware — up to 99% less. I hate scrubbing off that icky yellow buildup from other brands so PAM Cooking Spray is one of my must have holiday baking supplies! It also doesn’t hurt that there are zero calories in this non-stick solution!
Using PAM Cooking Spray is one of several Smart Tips I use to make my time in the kitchen pleasant. Another favorite Smart Tip is to clean up your mess as you go. No one likes spending the day baking then spending hours cleaning up! Have a sinkful of hot water standing by and add your dirty items as you use them. Every time you have a free minute in between tasks — wash a few items. This makes cleanup a breeze!
And last but not least, always make more goodies than you think you’ll need! Inevitably, you’ll burn the first batch, someone will walk by and sneak one… or four… cookies, or maybe you just want to make an extra something to store in the freezer for later. Having extra goodies is always a good thing!
Okay, that’s enough jabber! Let me show you haw I changed up Gramma’s old recipe card to make Cranberry Pumpkin Crunch dessert!
The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of regular sugar — I think that is way too much! I subbed 1 cup of dark brown sugar and it was just about right. The yellow cake mix topping makes this a sweet dessert so you could even cut back to 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of the brown sugar.
Think of this dessert as a spicy pumpkin custard or pumpkin pie without the pie crust. Dare I say it — I almost love this MORE than pumpkin pie *gasp!
The addition of 1 cup of fresh cranberries really makes this pumpkin dessert shine! If my weird family liked cranberries, I would have upped it to 1 1/2 – 2 cups because the bits that had a cranberry in them were the best!
Oh the nuts! I am a nut lover so I amped up the crunch by using 2 cups of chopped pecans instead 1 cup — more please!
Once the ingredients were ready, I poured my pumpkin custard mixture into two pie dishes — a 10 1/4 inch and an 8″ one. You can certainly go with the original recipe and make this dessert in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish. I just wanted to be festive :)
These scattered cranberries are going to be so juicy!
And now for the special reason why this dessert is so good — top your custard and cranberries with a box of classic yellow cake mix. Then, sprinkle on your nuts. THEN…. pour 2 sticks of melted sweet cream butter over top it all.
*Groans… who can resist melted butter? Not me!
Pop it in the oven on your center rack for 55 minutes. Your kitchen will smell like Heaven by the time it’s done baking!
Now, you could eat it just like it is — warm from the oven. But why pass up the chance to make homemade whipped cream?
I added a half pack of cream cheese, some vanilla and white sugar to my heavy cream and whipped it with my KitchenAid. Here’s another Smart Tip — If you want heavy cream to whip up really quickly — put your whisk attachment in the freezer for 10 minutes.
I will tell you that Cranberry Pumpkin Crunch is delicious warm out of the oven…
at room temperature…
and even by the spoonful cold from the fridge. Shhhh!
- 1 15oz can Pumpkin
- 1 12oz can Evaporated Milk
- 3 large Eggs
- ¾ - 1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 cup Fresh Cranberries, rinsed and patted dry
- 1 pkg Classic Yellow Cake Mix
- 2 cups Pecans, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup Sweet Cream Butter, melted
- 4 oz Cream Cheese, at room temp
- 1¼ cup Heavy Whipping Cream, chilled
- ¼ cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray 9" x 13" baking pan with Baking PAM Cooking Spray.
- In large bowl, combine pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Mix with wire whisk until well combined.
- Pour mixture into prepared baking dish.
- Scatter fresh cranberries evenly over custard.
- Sprinkle yellow cake mix over top custard and cranberries.
- Spread chopped nuts evenly over all.
- Carefully drizzle melted butter evenly over top nuts.
- Place on center rack in preheated oven.
- bake 50 - 55 minutes until top is golden brown and custard is set.
- Cool on wire rack.
- Serve warm or chilled, topped with whipped cream.
- Store leftovers in fridge.
- Beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add whipping cream, sugar and vanilla.
- Continue beating until cream forms peaks -- about 2-3 minutes. Store in air-tight container in fridge for up to 2 days.
Win PAM Cooking Spray kit!
Thanks to PAM Cooking Spray, one very lucky reader will win a Holiday Baking Giveaway valued at $50.00. Prize includes:
- Full size sample PAM Cooking Spray
- 10 1/4″ Le Creuset Pie Dish
How To Win:
Just Leave a comment on this post answering this question:
- Tell me your most memorable baking/cooking flop, or share a Smart Tip!
Giveaway Rules:
- Ends midnight PST on November 26, 2013.
- Open to U.S. Addresses only.
- Ages 18 and up only.
- Winners will be notified by email at the email address provided in the comment form.
- Winner must accept prize by email within 48 hours of notification.
- Any winner notification not responded to or returned as undeliverable will result in prize forfeiture.
- Only one prize per person and per household will be awarded.
- Please see full sweepstakes rules here.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of PAM Cooking Spray. For more information, visit http://www.pamcookingspray.com.
Oh there was the time I made sugar cookies for the family we adopted at church. I measured the salt right over the bowl of ingredients….oops, went a little heavy on the salt. I tried to scoop out as much as I could, but dang it, salt looks a lot like sugar. Those were more like salt licks than sugar cookies. (PS I was only, like 9 years old when I did this.)
My smart tip is making cookies in advance and then freezing them, I also tend to do that with scones, fruit pies and pound cakes as well! I also admit sometimes when I am short on time to using ready made frosting.
No tips here because I need all the help I can get :) My most memorable flop is attempting to make and decorate a strawberry shortcake character cake. I will not forget the look on my husbands face when he said it looks great except for the face. Thankfully the local grocery store had one all decorated when I stopped in there the monring of my daughters party.
My most memorable cooking flop were from an old sugar cookie recipe. I made them about 10 times and they always tasted like baking powder. All my family was kind to try them at least once.
Well one time I made homemade oreos and I couldn’t figure out why they tasted so terrible. I had pre measured everything out into individual bowls so I wouldn’t forget anything. As I was cleaning up I noticed one bowl at the edge of the counter…sugar!! I forgot the sugar oh my what an awful cookie.
Set timer for less time than you expect food to take so you don’t over cook.
wow, does that ever look good! it has all my favorite flavors all mixed into one dessert. Well, with the exception of chocolate.Yummy
I once baked a pumpkin pie that wouldn’t set no matter what. I can’t imagine what I did differently than any other time, but it was more like sweet pumpkin soup in a crust! :(
smart tip, try to prepare as much ahead of time so you’re not rushing
I always get out all my ingredients before I start many times i was halfway thru and didn’t have them
I tried cool whip cookies I found on pinterest…oh my gosh, what a disaster, the dough was impossible to work with
One year I had bought a fresh turkey and didn’t realize it would take longer to cook (not sure why). But we had company and everyone was here, side dishes done and we were waiting and waiting for the turkey. So in the end we had hot turkey, but cold side dishes.
Our biggest flop was when we left the giblet bag inside the turkey. It didn’t ruin anything, but it wasn’t easy removing a boiling hot bag of intestines from inside of the already cooked turkey.
A few years ago, I was baking chocolate chip cookies because I was having guests over. I guess I was so worried about getting other things done that I totally forgot to set the timer. By the time I realized it, the cookies looked like charcoal.
Tell me your most memorable baking/cooking flop, or share a Smart Tip!
i once made cookie without a few ingrdients..i could have made somebody sick
I burnt all the rolls on Thanksgiving Day for my new inlaws. That was embarrassing.
I made a red velvet cake and it was way too dense. I have no idea what I did wrong, but it was like eating cork board!
During the holiday season, I get so busy, and yet I still have a ton of baking to do. So, I put all the ingredients (that don’t need to be kept cold) into a smaller tote. That way when I cook, I just grab the tote and everything is together.
I have forgotten to add the liquid ingredients (oil or water) before and the mixer almost burned out because the dry ingredients were too stiff
don’t overfill cake pop pans! mine exploded one time!
This isn’t MY flop, but one of my friends. She made some type of dip for a party at work that had a layer of crispy bacon in it. She was supposed to cook the bacon FIRST before putting the rest in the oven. We were all biting into soggy mostly raw bacon!!
My smart tip is to read the recipe completely before you start, otherwise it could turn into a huge flop!!
I can’t wait to make the cranberry pumpkin crunch dessert, it looks amazing!
The worst thing I did in the kitchen is cook spoiled ground beef. Whoops!
I cooked a turkey with all the giblets and neck still stuffed inside. ………for my brand new mother in law, at our first Thanksgiving meal together. :)
That pie looks delicious!!
My fiance’ loves to grill and use his smoker.He makes smoked pulled pork and one roast makes about 5 meals for us so I package it in freezer bags.My smart tip is when re heating pulled pork I put it in foil,sprinkle it with water,wrap tightly and steam it in the oven.Turns out as juicy and tender as when it was first cooked :)
For boiling milk, first stir in a pinch of baking soda. It will help keep the milk from curdling.
i love baking cheesecakes for the holidays! when i bake mini cheesecakes i make sure they have water in the pan around them so they cook even!
My most memorable is not having the water warm enough for the yeast to dissolve and the bread did not raise, a total flop.
My smart tip is to be sure you have all of the ingredients before starting- otherwise you may get stuck with a less than satisfactory substitution!
cooking in arelative’s kitchen where for reasons only known to her, she kept isalt nstead of sugar in her giant retaurant style sugar shaker . So that when i presented the table witha grogeous strawberry shortcake topped with what I thought were fresh sugared home-grown strawberries. well youcan guess the rest…
I once spent a lot of time making fancy horderves and then burnt them because I never believed in pre-heating the over
My cooking flop was when I was baking sugar cookies and I didn’t space them enough, and they all melted together on the baking sheet.
My cookies are always flat as a pancake. Cooking tip to self: Don’t volunteer to make cookies!!
When making pie pastry; freeze butter and then grate it into ‘chips’. Dust the chips with flour and reserve them in the freezer until you are ready to combine it with other ingredients to make dough.
Major baking flop- I was baking biscuits from those cans when my phone rang. Long story short, I burnt the biscuits to a crisp and actually had to call my grandma to see if she had extras. She didn’t, so instead of biscuits and gravy for breakfast (which was already made), we had eggs.
My favorite tip for the kitchen: To clean the microwave, simply put a bowl of water in it and heat for a few minutes, until the water begins to steam. The steam will loosen any crusted on foods in the microwave and they can easily wiped off. Before I learned this, I was spraying all kinds of cleaners in my microwave and scrubbing like crazy. This makes cleaning it so EASY. :)
One of my (many!) flops was over cooking a pot of butter beans. I just lost track of time and ended up with a batch of pasty goo. Your crunch dessert looks wonderful!
I tried a new recipe for vegan shepard’s pie. I spent all afternoon getting everything ready only to have the gravy refuse to thicken. The gravy was the very last step before mixing it all together and baking it.
Ha! I bet it was hard to resist, I’d have tried it from the ‘fridge too. :)
My most memorable baking flop was cooking for my in-laws (SIL and her hubby and kids too). I thought making stuffed shells would be easy enough. I was newly married. I didn’t know you were supposed to boil the shells first. hahahhaha Oh my, it was not a good dinner. :)
I was at the end of middle school and my mom let me make the brownies for the summer bbq. We used a mix and I didn’t know that usually the bag needed a knife/scissors to open it. I pulled and tugged and ripped the bag wide open…and the entire contents ended up all over my feet. So much for dessert.
For stuffed shells it called for oregano, but I didn’t have any so I just used Italian seasoning. It was awful! The Italian seasoning had some other herb that was really strong. i took one bite and started crying. .lol. It was our first year of marriage and I hadn’t cooked anything good up until that point. . .so to McDonald’s we went!
I 4got to use cupcake wrappers on a batch and they stuck so bad!
I made a cherry pie and forgot to add the sugar.
THE POT HOLDER WAS STUCK ON THE BOTTOM OF THE COOKIE SHEET . (I DIDN’T NOTICE AND PUT THE COOKIE SHEET IN THE HOT OVEN)
Use cocoa powder instead of flour to dust your cake pans when making chocolate cakes. No white residue!
zuzu.wilson (at) yahoo (dot) com
A couple of months after my mom passed away, I got together with my two sisters to make pies for Thanksgiving. My mom usually did this, and we just couldn’t get the crust right. I don’t know how many we made, but all we could do was laugh! We all just buy the crust now, but my daughter is in pastry school so there’s hope for the future!
Smart Tip: Invest in a good timer!
I cooked the turky with all the inners still in the bag…that wasn’t good :)
I had many cooking flops. Last year, I was in charge of making a turkey for Thanksgiving. This was my first time. I never took out the insides and didn’t season it. I just threw it in the oven. It also burnt on the outside and not fully cooked on the inside. What a mess.
i accidently put in a cup of salt instead of sugar in a pie at church
invest in good mixer
My tip is to spray your measuring cup with PAM when measuring honey. It slides right out with no mess or waste.
That is interesting. I am going to try this!
Probably the overflowed pie in the oven
My biggest flop was when I was a kid I made a birthday cake for my grandma. It turned out all lopsided and hard so to make up the difference in size on the low side I just filled it with a huge gop of frosting. It was inedible and I was so embarrassed.
I think the funniest was when I was making brownies for my husband from a box mix and forgot to add the egg. It never set up–it was not edible.
jtmagmom73(at)gmail(dot)com
My tip, created because of previous flops, is to gather all the necessary ingredients before you begin and make sure you have enough of everything and all the ingredients are fresh.
This looks fantastic, and I love the combination of pumpkin and cranberry! My biggest tip is deceptively simple: gather all your ingredients and tools before you begin. I don’t know how many times I’ve ruined things with spur of the moment substitutions or needing to wash a tool at a bad time.
I baked sugar cookies for the holidays and painstakingly hand painted them with egg wash paint and put them on the counter top to cool. When I returned to the kitchen I found the dog had pulled down the paper towels they were resting on and licked off all the egg paint from them.
My most memorable baking flop was not my own but my sister’s. One Thanksgiving she forgot to put sugar in the pies! We all laughed about it and ate them anyway.
I got my teaspoon and tablespoon measuring spoons mixed up and used way too much salt in a cake. Definite FLOP!
My most memorable baking flop was a lemon icebox pie that when sliced came out like a runny egg. Yuck!
My worst? Choose ANY time I have tried to bake yeast bread. All disasters. I have tried the new “no fail” , “no knead” recipes. They do fail for me. Sigh. Yeast is not my friend.
I remember one year during the cookie baking marathon my mom and I were having, I tried two new cookie recipes and both were horrible and had to be thrown out. Sometimes it’s better to stick with the classic recipes or try out new ones ahead of time.
I use Pam with Flour whenever I’m baking ANYTHING to make sure it doesn’t stick. That stuff is magic. My tip: even if the recipe doesn’t say to grease/spray a pan, just use Pam to make sure it doesn’t stick!
i roasted or attempted to roast a turkey that was still frozen
i tried to make a lemon tart ..it burnt so fast
I accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder in my pancakes and they tasted awful.
A few thanksgivings ago my mom dropped all the food on the floor and burned her whole arm
Most memorable cooking flop was making my grandmother’s cooked raisins and adding chili powder instead of cinnamon by mistake (same brand, same size container). Realized it before stirring, so we could scrape it off and salvage most of the dish.
I am pretty floppy when it comes to cooking and baking. I flopped tonight actually. I put some potato soup in the crock pot. According to the instructions after 7 hours it was going to be amazing. Turns out 7 hours at my house leads to hard potatoes and unamazing results. We had mcdonalds
My most memorable baking flop actually occurred over the summer. I was given tons of zucchini and I decided to make zucchini bread. I searched for several “healthy” recipes and decided to wing it and mesh a few recipes together. Bad idea. I ended up with two overly dense, extremely moist bread loaves even after 2 hours of baking (YES! I just said 2 hours!). I decided to taste it after it cooled. I cut into it and was immediately met with a disgusting gooey mess of zucchini…BLOB. I don’t know what else to call it! It didn’t even hold together. It just spread apart and looked nasty. Needless to say…it never entered my mouth. Honestly, it didn’t even smell good. Both loaves were trashed. I have yet to try it again. But when I do, I will follow one recipe at a time until I find one I like and then make any necessary tweaks. I am good at most baking, but that was definitely not a high point for me!
Ps…your dessert looks delicious. I am going to try it after thanksgiving and see how we like it. It looks like something I would enjoy and looks easy enough to replicate. I will follow the recipe to a T though…..I want to be able to actually eat it!
I once made oatmeal cookies that didn’t rise at all. It turns out that flour is an essential ingredient and can’t be forgotten.
The first time my in-laws ever came to dinner, we decided to all go over to my parent’s place for a while. The meal was simmering on the stove, so I just turned it off until we got back. Or, at least, I thought I did. The liquid all evaporated, and the meat burned onto the bottom of the pot. The apartment was full of smoke and I suspect, if we had been a few moments longer, there might even have been flames. I quickly pulled out some pork chops and fried them up instead. As if things were not bad enough, when I went to serve the pie, I tripped and the whole thing landed upside-down on the floor.
My most memorable baking flop was when I left the plastic wrap on a ham that I cooked for my first dinner party with my in laws!
My mom is “famous” for her yeast rolls (using my great-grandmother’s recipe). They are so delicious! I’ve tried to make them a few times, but they never turn out anywhere near as good as my mom’s.
measure out all ingredients before starting- it is so much less stressful
When creating a cake with alcohol, always go with your 1st instinct. I was attempting to make a butter-rum cake, a replica of my friend’s recipe, and I thought if I add just a little bit more rum wouldn’t hurt. LIES! I let is soak over night as the recipe directed and the next day couldn’t wait to try it. It was like taking an actual shot of rum lol, only in the form of cake. Moral of the story: Less is more!
This is not MY flop, but it is still worth sharing. I am vegan, and my husband makes a KILLER vegan cheesecake. One year he was making it for my birthday, but when I saw it, something looked off. There were little green flecks in my cheesecake! I checked the garbage and sure enough when he had gone to the store he accidentally bought the chive flavored cream cheese! That was many years ago, but I still double check the cream cheese every time he offers to make me a cheese cake!
when I was a young child my mom and I use to bake for a week before Christmas, we had candy and breads all over the place and it was eat in one day or we use to make them a platter and they would take it home with them.
I spray my hands with Pam when I am rolling gooey cookies dough into balls. It works great.
I was cooking the Thanksgiving meal for my husband’s family and was going all out. I cooked and baked for a couple of days. Well when it came time to carve the turkey, I pulled it from the oven and opened the roasting bag. I said “this turkey doesn’t have a breast!” which drew a crowd to the kitchen to discover I cooked it upside down! It was the best, most juicy turkey we had ever ate and now I always cook my turkey upside down and so does many others in the family now.
One year I was making a pumpkin dessert for Thanksgiving to take to my mother’s house and I forgot the eggs. That was probably my biggest flop. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
cooking our first turkey and serving it half cooked and half raw :(
It took longer to cook the turkey than I thought it would. I was 3 hours late to Thanksgiving.
One time I forgot to put sugar in my pumpkin pie, and it was just awful!
When I was about 12 I made a casserole that calle for 1 1/2 cups of chopped onions and I used 1 1/2 cups dried minced onions because I didn’t know better. It was completely inedible!
I think my worst flub ever was the first time I tried to make no bake oatmeal cookies. I overcooked the mixture that you stir the oatmeal into and it cemented in the pan. It completely ruined the pan couldn’t get it out!
my biggest flop was using baking soda instead of baking powder ;)
A few years ago, I was going to make a cake. I did the same thing I do every other time I make cake, but for some reason, the cake would not come out of the pan. I ended up with cake chunks. I was getting pretty upset, but I rolled with it and made trifle instead!
My most memorable cooking flop happened when I was 15. My foster mom was a nurse and she worked long hours, so I decided to surprise her by making her dinner. I put the pork chops in the pan, seasoned them, and started to cook. The chops burned to a crisp because I thought that they made their own grease (pork chops are pork – bacon is pork and it makes it’s own grease, right?). We had a good laugh about it and then she showed me how to cook them correctly :)
my most memorable cooking flop was the time i forgot the sugar in my apple pie, it was horrible
My aunt and I put baking soda in our gravy instead of cornstartch. It was a terrible mess
I put 1 1/4 cups of water in my brownie mixture instead of 1/4 cup. I thought I’d try to salvage it by adding a little more flour, cocoa and sugar but I didn’t think it would work. They came out great and everybody said they were better than my normal brownies!
My first year cooking a turkey I left all the gizzards and paper inside the turkey. I should have read the directions. lol
When I was a teenager I decided to make scrambled eggs. I only stirred the liquid and not the eggs hardening on the bottom of the pan. I burnt the eggs so bad my dog wouldn’t even eat them. True story.
My most memorable was the year that I put the butter in the microwave to soften for my pecan pies. The next day when I took the first bite I wondered what was off with the pie. I didn’t figure it out until later when I went to use the microwave and there was the measuring cup of butter.
my biggest flop was pecan pie I made 20 different pie before I finally got one that I liked but their was a lot of them that I could not even eat
Most recent flop was baking a pizza for the family. I forgot about it in the oven and it burned almost to a crisp!
Decided to double the recipe for an angel food cake since the cake pan didn’t look full enough. It overflowed and was an unmitigated disaster. Learned a valuable lesson. Also learned how to properly and fully clean an oven that day.
I was in college and making meatballs which was a huge expensive undertaking since I was a poor college student and buying meat to serve 15 was a big deal. I put the heat on and then went downstairs to my friend’s dorm. (My roommate was in the room)
I didn’t realize I left the heat on high and not low so it didn’t just burn, it made a frisbee. I was devastated and the place stunk because my roommate fell asleep :(
The Cranberry Pumpkin Crunch Dessert looks delicious. I’ve had a lot of mishaps during my lifetime. The latest one was when I invited a guest for dinner and was cooking some roast pork. We got to talking and I forgot the roast until it was very overdone. It was embarrassing but we did eat the rest of the meal and had a very good conversation, at least. Thanks.
My first apple pie that I made I totally overstuffed the pie and didn’t even think to put a baking sheet under it. Of course, the pie practically exploded all over my oven and took me several hours to clean. Total disaster.
acartwrightmorell at gmail dot com
One time I made an apple pie and the crust caved in after the apples baked.
That dessert looks delish. You’re right, there’s several variations and versions of recipes online. I’ve found PAM to be the best cooking spray.
I have had my fair share of baking flops. I usually have them when I attempt to bake cookies. ~lol~