You can’t walk 10 feet these days without running into a pumpkin-flavored item. Some feel the trend has reached its saturation point (as evidenced by this Mashable list, which includes appetite-reducing pumpkin spice-flavored Pringles), but I could not disagree more. I love me some pumpkin. Lattes, cookies, candles, body wash … if they make it in pumpkin spice, I’ll buy it. So it was only fitting that I put my culinary skills to the test with some of Pinterest’s most popular pumpkin projects. Here’s what I tried:
Experiment No. 1: “Easy Pumpkin Pretzels” (Original Pin)
Experience Level: Easy (Unless you don’t know how to melt chocolate, then it is hard. So hard.)
Time Elapsed Before First Injury: No Injuries
Original Pin (Photo: InspiredDreamer.com via Pinterest)
Making these mini treats wasn’t as easy as I expected. Did you know melting white chocolate is hard? I did not know melting white chocolate was hard, but I certainly do now. I even followed the directions. First I placed the white chocolate chips in a double boiler, the bottom of which was filled with two inches of water (enough to steam but not scorch the top pot). After bringing the water to a boil and placing the burner on low, I added the white chocolate chips and some shortening to the top pot and stirred every 30 seconds. I added the orange food dye during this process and continued stirring…but somehow the chips quickly turned into this bizarre icing consistency rather than smooth, melty chocolate. I freaked out (naturally) because I only had one bag of white chocolate chips and I did not feel like going back to the store to get another. The Eagles were on soon and that was not a part of my game plan. WHY did this happen?!? I still have no idea.
I quickly adapted by pouring a little of the boiling water into the icing. It seemed to do the trick, but I also realize that this could have gone very poorly because I literally had no idea what I was doing. Anyways, I dipped the pretzels, as directed, into the white chocolate and boiling water mixture. It worked fairly well, though some pretzels turned out a bit clumpy. Attaching the green M&M stems wasn’t difficult at all, though I was appalled at the disproportionate number of blue and green M&Ms in the bag I bought. It wasn’t right.
Laura’s Pin
Experiment No. 2: No-Churn Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream (Original Pin)
Experience Level: Easy
Time Elapsed Before First Injury: No Injuries
Original Pin (Photo: savingdollarsandsense.com)
Making this no-churn ice cream was absurdly easy…so easy that I was convinced I missed a step or did something horribly wrong that would make the ice cream taste like soap. But nope, it is really just easy! All I had to do was make whipped cream (and by make, I mean put the mixer on high and wait for “stiff peaks” to appear), add some sweetened condensed milk, a little pumpkin puree, some vanilla and couple of spices. I mixed, removed and popped the mixture in the freezer for four hours. BOOM! Pumpkin ice cream! Without having to go to the store (which I have clearly demonstrated I do not enjoy doing).
So, Did It Work? Heck yes. Despite my fears, this project turned out great. I really feel like I should reiterate just how easy it was to make this. SO SIMPLE. I also feel like this could be adapted with other flavors pretty easily, but I’m definitely not adventurous enough to try it so if anyone does please let me know. Here’s the final product:
Laura’s Pin
Experiment No. 3: Surprise Inside Pumpkin Cake (Original Pin)
Experience Level: Moderate
Time Elapsed Before First Injury: No Injuries
Original Pin (Photo: SheKnows)
This project gets a moderate rating because of all the steps involved. Generally, I am a one-step cooking kind of girl (aka I love the microwave), but this cake had multiple steps involved. First I had to make pumpkin bread from a box mix. Sounds straightforward enough, but not when you forget to add water to the mix and it creates this cement-esque mixture that DOES NOT absorb water. Whoops. It eventually absorbed the water after some strenuous stirring. I put the bread in the oven as directed and then froze the loaf for three hours. Next, I took a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter (purchased on Amazon) and cut out mini pumpkins, which were later placed in a line in a loaf pan.
Next, I mixed up a standard boxed yellow cake and poured it over the pumpkin shapes. I actually think this was supposed to be a pound cake mix, but I bought yellow so I went with the yellow. The cake mix didn’t quite cover the stems of the pumpkins, which made me a little wary that it wasn’t going to come out right. Fortunately, as the cake baked in the oven, the stems slowly disappeared under the yellow cake. Phew. Crisis averted.
So, Did It Work? I was absurdly nervous to cut into this cake. I’ve never made anything remotely like this and did not know what to expect. I 100 percent believed that the orange pumpkin bread was going to melt into the yellow cake and I’d cut into some sort of tie-dye pumpkin bread-cake hybrid, which would probably be delicious, but not what I was looking for. Fortunately, it turned out like this:
Laura’s Pin
IT WORKED! It isn’t the best-looking pumpkin, but you can definitely tell that is a pumpkin in there…I think. If you can’t, just pretend because I am so so so so proud. Happy Halloween!
Have a Pin you’d like me to test? Leave it in the comments below.
- Laura Pin Photos: Laura Hibbs McKenzie
- Original Pins: Corresponding Pinterest Pages
