It's that time of year when everything has pumpkin in it. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a lover of pumpkin. I don't know why I don't eat it every month of the year, but for some strange reason, I limit my pumpkin consumption to October and November. Every year I keep saying I'm going to eat pumpkin other times of the year, but it just never seems to happen. As I was looking for some pumpkin recipes, I came across this recipe by Better Homes and Garden for pumpkin bread truffles and thought this would be a great pumpkin bread cake ball. How can you go wrong with that!
Pumpkin Bread Cake Balls
The benefit of this recipe is that it makes two loaves of pumpkin bread. I used one for the truffles, which I'm calling cake balls, and I just finished the last piece of the second loaf today with my morning coffee. This is probably one of the moistest breads I have had in a long time with great pumpkin flavor. I made some minor changes to the spices, but all in all, not much needed to be changed with this recipe.
Ingredients
- Sugar
- Canola Oil
- Eggs
- All Purpose Flour
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Canned pumpkin
How to Make Pumpkin Bread Cake Balls
First, you'll bake two loaves of the pumpkin bread. Like I mentioned before I saved one loaf of bread, and used the other loaf for the cake balls. The key to the cake balls is to make sure the pumpkin bread is cooled before you crumble it up. Once the bread has fully cooled, work it gently between your fingers until you have small pieces before adding the cream cheese frosting.
To make the cake balls, I simply added 1 cup of cream cheese frosting to the crumbled loaf of pumpkin bread and stirred until it was fully combined. Next, I rolled the bread and frosting mixture into 24 balls. When forming the cake balls, the mixture should be moist and when you roll a ball together it should hold. If the mixture seems to dry, add another spoonful or two of frosting until it’s the right consistency. Once you add the frosting and shape the balls, keep them in the fridge for 2-3 hours before decorating. Once the balls were cooled, I dipped them into melted orange candy coating and decorated.
After decorating the cake balls, refrigerate them to allow the coating to set. Pumpkin Bread Cake Balls are best served at room temperature. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
How to Decorate Pumpkin Bread Cake Balls
When it comes to decorating the pumpkin bread cake balls you have a lot of creative options beyond how I chose to decorate them. You could use chocolate and enrobe the cake balls with it. If you have an air gun, you could spray the decorations on to make them look like little pumpkins. You could just cover them with candy coating and dip them in Halloween sprinkles. Take a look at Pinterest and see what kind of ideas are out there.
Here are a few of our favorite pumpkin recipes:
We have a few pumpkin recipes on the blog: Chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, Pumpkin Spice Pull Apart Bread, and Chocolate Pumpkin Stout Cupcakes (personally my favorite). I hope you enjoy the bread as much as we do and you'll have it all year round instead of just in October and November!
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Pumpkin Bread Cake Balls
Ingredients
Pumpkin Bread
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup canola oil
- 4 eggs
- 3 ⅓ cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
- ⅔ cup water
- 1 can pumpkin (15 ounce)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ 8-ounce package reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 teaspoon fat free milk
Cake Ball Coating
- 24 ounces orange candy coating
- 2 tablespoons chocolate candy coating
- 2 ounces green candy coating
Instructions
Pumpkin Bread
- Heat oven to 350°F.
- Grease two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl beat sugar and oil with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add eggs and beat well. Set aside.
- In a second large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add flour mixture and water to sugar mixture. Alternating between flour and water, beating on low speed after each addition until just combined.
- Beat in the pumpkin.
- Spoon batter into prepared pans and bake for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
- Cool in pan on wire racks for 10 minutes.
- Remove from pans and cool completely.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well. If needed, beat in milk until frosting reaches spreading consistency. Set aside.
Pumpkin Cake Balls
- Crumble one loaf of fully cooled pumpkin bread into a large bowl until you have small pieces.
- Add the cream cheese frosting to the bowl of crumbled pumpkin bread. Stir until well combined.
- Use a spoon to scoop out small balls of the pumpkin bread frosting mixture and roll them between your palms until rounded. Place the ball on a baking sheet covered with parchment or wax paper.
- Keep the balls in the fridge for 2-3 hours before adding the candy coating.
Candy Coating
- Prepare the orange candy coating by microwaving in a medium bowl until melted. Stir every 30 seconds so it doesn’t overheat.
- Dip a pumpkin bead cake ball into the orange candy coating. Before placing the cake ball back onto the baking sheet, let the extra candy coating drip off into the bowl. Use a fork or toothpick to dip the cake ball into the candy coating. Continue until all the cake balls are coated.
- Melt your chocolate chips or candy coating in the microwave. You can stir the melted chocolate into whatever remains of the orange candy coating, you’ll get a deeper orange color. Add the chocolate coating to a piping bag with a small round tip. Create lines on the pumpkin cake ball by piping intersecting lines across it.
- Melt the green candy coating in the microwave and transfer to a piping bag with a small round tip. Pipe a small dollop of green on the top center of each cake ball.
- Refrigerate the cake balls for a short time before serving to allow the coating to set.
- Serve the cake balls at room temperature. You can store the cake balls in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
Notes
Nutrition
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