Skip to footer

Pumpkin poppers

Dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar, it doesn't get much better than these pumpkin poppers. They're just as tasty as a pumpkin donut hole, without the yeast or deep frying.

|
The Pastry Chef's Baking
Bake these easy pumpkin poppers in a mini muffin tin. Then dip them in butter and roll them in cinnamon sugar.

This is one of those recipes I saw on Pinterest where the picture alone sucks me in and gets pinned immediately so I don't lose sight of the source and can make the recipe when it feels like the right time. And it's time. These poppers are reminiscent of the Apple Cinnamon Bites I've made before that I thought were delicious. Because anything dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar has some serious game.

Pumpkin poppers are super easy to throw together – you can mix up the recipe while your oven is preheating and be ready to put the first batch in soon after. I skipped the ground cloves and allspice called for in the recipe, as I don't like to have too many spices in my pumpkin baked goods; cinnamon and nutmeg are all I mostly prefer. 

For the first batch, I only dipped the tops in the melted butter and rolled them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. You can roll the whole thing but I prefer the coating in moderation. These are really good, especially when eaten warm. It's like eating little pumpkin donut holes dusted with cinnamon sugar without the fuss of a yeasted dough and deep frying.

Pumpkin poppers
From Just the Little Thing 

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup pumpkin purée
1/2 cup milk

Sugar coating
1 stick unsalted butter, melted (I used less, about 1/2 stick)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray mini muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices in a bowl and whisk until combined.

3. In another bowl, mix oil, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin, and milk. Pour in flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fill mini muffin tins until almost full and bake 10-12 minutes. 

4. Melt butter in small bowl. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a separate small bowl. After poppers have cooled for a few minutes, dip them in the butter and roll them in the sugar mixture.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Pumpkin poppers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2012/1018/Pumpkin-poppers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe