Pumpkin Cake Pops -

Pumpkin Cake Pops

Healthy pumpkin cake pops that burst with fall flavor while being wholesomely and naturally sweetened. Perfect treats for Halloween or simply as fun fall decorated cake balls to surprise your child with after school. This is a delicious fall cake pops recipe for letting kids have a treat without the penalty of a sugar rush.

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Prep Time: 15

Cook Time: 23

Decorating Time: 1

Total Time: 1 38

Servings: Cake Pops

Calories: 273kcal

Equipment

Ingredients

Pumpkin Spice Cake

113 g butter softened
200 g homemade date paste
75 g maple syrup
2 eggs
75 g pumpkin puree canned
100 g flour
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

227 g cream cheese softened, x4, separated
113 g butter softened, x4, separated
63 g honey raw, x4, separated
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice x4, separated
raisins
India Tree Food Coloring

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Make the Pumpkin Spice Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and oil a square 8x8 baking dish.
In a medium-size bowl, use an electric hand mixer to combine softened butter, date paste and maple syrup.
Add in eggs and pumpkin and mix until combined.
Add in all dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Pour batter into the 8x8 baking dish and bake 23 minutes. The cake will be very soft but the color should not look underbaked in the center and a toothpick should come out clean when it is done.
Remove from the oven and allow cake to cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Then, remove from the pan and allow to finish cooling on a cooling wrack or a plate.
The cake may stick to whatever it cools on, but don't worry about how the cake looks since you will be crumbling it up anyway.
If you want to save the cake to make the cake pops later, place the cake in an airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to one month. You can break the cake into pieces to store it however is easiest.

Make the Cake Balls

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, add one all cream cheese frosting ingredients x1. Mix with an electric hand mixer until everything is fully combined. Set aside while you crumble your pumpkin cake.
In a medium-large-size bowl, use gloved hands to break the pumpkin spice cake into pieces and crumble it with your fingers.
Add the cream cheese frosting to the crumbled cake and use your gloved hands to thoroughly mix everything together.
Using your gloved hands, roll the cake and frosting mixture into balls that are about 1 1/2 inches in size. You should end up with roughly 30-34 balls depending on the size of your balls.
Place the balls on the lined baking sheet as you roll them. Once they are all rolled, place the baking sheet in the freezer for an hour.
After an hour, take the cake balls out of the freezer to decorate them. If you do not wish to decorate them yet, place them in an airtight container so that they do not get freezer burned or stale until you are ready to decorate.
You can store these in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to one month before decorating.

Decorate the Cake Pops

To decorate your cake pops, first make your frosting. You will need three batches (each ingredient x3) of the cream cheese frosting in total to frost all of the cake pops.
However, I recommend making one batch at a time and decorating 1/3 of the cake pops in a single sitting as they do take some time to decorate. To do this, combine all of the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting x1 in a small bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer (the same as you did for the frosting that went into the cake ball mixture).
Once the cream cheese frosting is mixed, separate out about 1 tablespoon of the frosting into a small bowl.
Using India Tree food coloring (or your other coloring of choice), color the 1 tablespoon of frosting green and color the rest of the frosting orange.
Using a star tip with your piping bag (the small sized tips, not the large ones meant for cake decorating), fill the bag with the orange frosting.
Get out a handful of raisins on a small plate and cut them in half (or in quarters if they are large).
When you are ready to decorate the cake pops, pull them out of the fridge or freezer.
If your cake balls have been in the freezer, allow them to sit for just a few minutes so they are soft enough to insert your cake pop sticks.
If they have been in the fridge, only take out a few cake pops at a time to decorate so they do not become too soft.
Push the cake pop sticks into the cake pops you are ready to work on.
Working one at a time, decorate your cake pop with orange stars until the cake ball is covered all over. Don't worry if it doesn't look perfect. This design is meant to be forgiving.
Using a small spoon or spatula, dollop a little bit of green frosting on top of the pumpkin for the stem.
Use raisins to make a face on the pumpkin.
Place cake pops standing up in a mug to chill in the freezer. Don't overcrowd the mug so that they don't touch each other. I can usually fit about five in each mug.
Leave the cake pops in the freezer to firm up for 2 hours before moving them to containers for storing.
*See note for storing instructions.

Notes

Note that all of the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting are x4 but separated. One batch of the cream cheese frosting will be added to the crumbled pumpkin spice cake for mixing and making into cake balls. The other three batches will be for decorating the cake pops to look like pumpkins.
However, I recommend making each batch separately so that you can decorate them in three separate time increments. The reason is because you need to have enough room in your freezer to stand up the cake pops while they harden. Additionally, the frosting will start to get melty if it is at room temperature and you are working with it for long periods of time.
The best way to store the cake pops decorated with cream cheese frosting is to first freeze them standing up in mugs and then transfer them to parchment lined containers with lids. They need to be stored in a single layer. The frosting will not harden completely when frozen, but it will not be completely soft either. If you lay them down to store them, that portion of the frosting may get slightly smudged, but it will mostly hold it's shape. Since the design of the frosting hides imperfections, they come out still looking great.

Nutrition

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