Spread apple pie filling in the bottom of a 9 x 9 inch sprayed
baking dish. Sprinkle cranberries on top fold in just a little to spread them around.
Cream together butter and 1/4 cup of the sugar in your mixer until light and fluffy. Turn mixer down to low and add the flour, baking powder, salt and evaporated milk. Turn mixer up to medium and mix until well combined. Spread the batter over the fruit with a spoon.
Whisk together remaining 3/4 cup of sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice. Sprinkle sugar mixture over the batter on the fruit.
Heat the water in the microwave until boiling then pour over the sugar mixture in the baking pan.
Bake in preheated oven 55 to 60 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream.
Notes
A hand held mixer is fine, no need to pull out the big stand mixer for this.
Evaporated milk is not the same as sweetened condensed milk. However if you don't have any evaporated milk on hand, you can create your own. To make 1 cup of evaporated milk, simmer 2 1/4 cups of regular milk down until it becomes 1 cup.
You can use either fresh or frozen cranberries for this dessert. If you are using frozen, don't thaw them, just toss them in frozen.