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Made with spice cake and cream cheese frosting, these Cake Ball Pumpkins are a perfect party treat for Halloween, Thanksgiving or the Fall Festival!
We don’t really make a big deal out of Halloween (I’m much more of a general “autumn” kind of girl) but I thought it would be fun to team up with Alli from Cupcake Diaries for her annual 30 Days of Halloween.
She’s brought bloggers together to create fun recipes and printables every day in October! You can read a little more about it on her website.
I saw what I’m calling “Cake Ball Pumpkins” on Pinterest several months ago and I pinned them to my “test these for later” board. The pin didn’t lead to a recipe- these little pumpkins were something you could get in a gift basket from 1800Baskets.
But I figured I could come up with something similar on my own. My cooking and baking adventures always seem to start with, “I’ll just make something up. It’s close enough.”
Obviously, these are little spice cakes with a cream cheese filling and coated in candy melts. I think the stems are just frosted, but they could be little candies, perhaps. I didn’t feel like going to the work of creating a filling, so I decided to combine the flavors into a basic cake ball.
The cake ball part was easy. The DIPPING of the cake balls was a bit of a disaster this time. I don’t really know what happened, other than the fact that those candy melts are so unpredictable.
I didn’t want to deal with dyeing my own, so I got the orange Wilton Candy Melts. They are supposed to melt in the microwave, but I’m pretty sure mine got too warm and started to seize up.
I added some coconut oil to the candy to smooth it out, but I was still muttering under my breath and coming to the realization that mine were just not going to be perfectly smooth.
Fine. I’m not a professional and they are still going to taste good. Plus, they still give me that, “Oh, those are so cute!” feeling when I see them on the plate. 🙂
How to Make Cake Ball Pumpkins
- 1 box spice cake mix (or your favorite spice cake recipe)
- 1 tub cream cheese frosting
- 1 bag orange candy melts
- 2-3 tootsie rolls for stems
- Optional: candy leaves or green frosting for piping leaves
- Bake the cake according to package directions and let cool. Crumble up the cake in the pan (I just use my hands to rake through the cake until it’s evenly crumbled.)
- Stir in the frosting until you get it wet enough to roll into balls. I think I used about 3/4 of the tub of frosting.
- Roll up the mixture into balls, pressing down on the top slightly to make them a little more pumpkin shaped. Place on a wax paper lined sheet pan and freeze for about 10 minutes to harden slightly.
- While the cake balls are in the freezer, melt the candy melts according to the package directions (I have found using a double boiler to be much better than the microwave for this.) Dip the cooled cake balls into the melted candy to coat and then place back on the wax paper to set.
Little side note here-I had great visions in my mind of perfectly shaped pumpkins with the creases down the side. I tried adding those crease lines first to the cake ball, but they disappeared under the candy coating. Then I tried swiping down the candy coating to create lines, but it hardens so quickly that it just ends up making a mess. So stick with the cute stems and leaves to make it obvious these are pumpkins and not just random orange balls. 😉
For the stems, roll out a tootsie toll on the counter like a bit of play dough, so you get a longer, thinner roll of chocolate. Slice off a piece and stick it into the top of the pumpkins before the candy coating sets completely.
You’ll want to do them a few at a time. Add candy leaves or pipe them on with green frosting and you’ve got cake ball pumpkins!
Charlie helped me roll the pumpkins and then he came out to the garage to do a photo shoot with me. He’s going to be quite the blogger when he grows up. 😉
More fun treats for Halloween and Thanksgiving:
- Rice Krispies Treat Pumpkins
- Turkey Leg Treats
- Owl Rice Krispies Treats
- Harvest Corn Pops
- Halloween Giant Cookie Cake
Here’s the rest of this fun Halloween series so far-it will update each day as a new post goes live, so be sure to come back and check out what’s been added! Happy Fall, Y’all!
- Candy Cane Brownies - November 27, 2023
- Turtle Pumpkin Pie - November 16, 2023
- Grinch Cookies - November 13, 2023
Ana says
And the cream cheese filling? When, how?
Nicole Burkholder says
This recipe mixes the cream cheese in with the cake to create the cake balls. It’s not filling. The photo with the little pumpkins will filling is just the inspiration for this recipe. These cake balls are just a bit easier because you don’t have to add filling-you mix it all together 🙂
Nicole says
Hello! I was curious how you got the “blob” of icing in the center of the cake balls?
Nicole Burkholder says
Hi! That photo with the filling is just where my inspiration for the cake balls came from. It was on a website for purchasing gift baskets. There was no recipe included or anything-just a sample photo. They look delicious though! They looked like spice cakes with cream cheese filling that were then dipped and made to look like pumpkins. For simplicity’s sake, I just made standard cake balls by using a mixture of cake and cream cheese (similar to cake pops that you get at Starbucks.)
If you really wanted to make mini cakes filled with cream, my best guess would be that they were baked, gently hollowed out just a touch and then filled with icing using a piping bag and tip.
For me, that was entirely too much work, especially when the flavor profile would end up being essentially the same (spice cake with cream cheese icing.) 🙂 Hope that helps!
Jen says
Nice use of the image from The Swiss Colony and their Spiced Pumpkins… I was the Creative Director on that photo shoot.
Nicole Burkholder says
If you have a link to the original photo, I would love to include it! As you can see, there’s currently a link under the photo to where the original pin that I found was located. It’s credited both in that link and in the text of the post as my inspiration. Mine are obviously NOT as professional and pretty looking, nor do I have any idea if the insides are the same at all. It was literally just a jumping off point/inspiration to come up with my own version.
Direct quote from the post: “I saw what I’m calling “Cake Ball Pumpkins” on Pinterest several months ago and I pinned them to my “test these for later” board. The pin didn’t lead to a recipe- these little pumpkins were something you could get in a gift basket from 1800Baskets. But I figured I could come up with something similar on my own. My cooking and baking adventures always seem to start with, “I’ll just make something up. It’s close enough.”
As we all know, Pinterest is infamous for stolen images, so if that image didn’t originally come from 1800Baskets, which is where I found it, then please let me know and I’ll be happy to link to the correct original source.
Angela says
I made these yesterday. Some of them I did put store bought cheesecake filling in them and some I didn’t. They were so good though thanks for a great and fun recipe
Nicole Burkholder says
That sounds really yummy! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed them 🙂
Mary Palmer says
I like this site…..Thank you
Nicole Burkholder says
Thank you! I hope you find some great ideas you can use 🙂
Alli @ Cupcake Diaries says
I love cake balls and I can’t wait to try this version! I especially love that the recipe is easy. Thanks so much for participating in the series this year and for the great post!
Nicole Burkholder says
I was happy to have an excuse to start working on fall stuff back in August. 😉 I’ve enjoyed checking out the series so far- thanks for having me!