Pumpkin Cake-Pops

Here is a recipe for a pumpkin... in and out!

A pumpkin cake pop, filled with pumpkin cake and shaped like a pumpkin! If you have a sweet tooth, this is the recipe for you! You will find two different versions, one with a white chocolate cover, and one with a fondant cover. They are both delicious, so, whatever suits you, is there!

For the pumpkin cake (18cm size):

• 125 gr of Pumpkin pulp (not cooked)
• 200 gr of all-purpose flour
• 50 mL of vegetable oil
• 40 mL of whole milk
• 2 eggs
• 115 gr of sugar
• 2 tsp of rum
• a pinch of salt
• yeast for sweets (8 gr)

For the frosting:

• 75 gr of unsalted butter
• 150 gr of icing sugar
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 2 tsp of milk

For decorating (for the chocolate version):

• 500 gr of white chocolate
• orange edible colour (or red and yellow)

For decorating (for the fondant):

• Orange fondant
• Green fondant
• Black fondant

I used a smoothie mixer for this first step, but a regular mixer does precisely the same!

Add the milk and the vegetable oil to the pumpkin pulp and mix it. You should have a really bright (depending on the colour of your pumpkin) cream.

Sieve one spoon of flour with the yeast and add it to the pumpkin. Mix with a wooded spoon.

Divide the whites from the yolks.

Firstly, add 80 gr of sugar to the yolks, and add the rum. Beat the mixture until smooth.

Secondly, in a different bowl, add the remaining sugar to the whites and beat them until they reach that foam-like texture (to check if they are ready, slowly place upside down the bowl with the mixed whites. (If it holds to the bowl they are ready, if they don`t hold... well just be careful to not spill everything all over the place!)

Add the yolk mix to the pumpkin and mix with a wooden spoon. Once thoroughly mixed, add the whites. You need to be really gentle as otherwise, the cake will not preserve that "fluffiness" at the end. So, slowly take one spoonful of the whites and add it to the mixture. Gently, mix with a spoon with round movements, from the bottom of the bowl to the top. Continue mixing until all the whites are incorporated.

Start by adding the flour, spoon by spoon. Sieve the flour into the mixture, and, by using the same movement above, incorporate the flour.

Place the baking paper at the bottom of the cake mould and cover the side by spreading some butter, this will prevent the cake to stick.

Pour the cake mix in the cake mould and place it into the oven at 175C for 40 min.

Note: if you see after 30 minutes that your cake starts to burn you can cover it with aluminum foil.

Once that cake is ready, leave it to cool down.

Beat the butter until softened. Sieve the icing sugar, and add the milk and the cinnamon. Continue to beat until a cream has been obtained.

Now we are ready to shape our little pumpkins!

Firstly take the cake a literally break it into pieces placing them into the frosting.

Mix the cake with the frosting until you obtained a dough-like mixture which we will use to shape our pumpkins.

Now take a little piece of cake mix and shape it into a ball. Then shape the ball as a little pumpkin. If you don`t have any cake tools, you can use the side of a toothpick!

Remember that we are going to cover our pumpkins so, don`t be shy, and shape the pumpkin with strong forms by doing deep cuts on the sides!

What I have done is I made a ball, press it on the side, and shaped the pumpkin.

You can follow two different routes. For the chocolate version:

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and colour the chocolate.

One pumpkin at a time, pour them into the chocolate and leave them to dry.

Note: more deep are your cuts on the pumpkin cakes, the better the chocolate will cover evenly the pumpkin giving it that pumpkin shape!

If you prefer working with fondant then you can cover your cake pops with coloured sugar!

Lay a piece of orange fondant and cover the cake pop. Press the fondant in all the areas that you highlighted before and place a little piece of brown fondant on the top of the cake pop.

Whatever way you choose... enjoy!