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Can’t Be Bothered with Halloween Decorations? Celebrate with These Cute Mini Pumpkin Dumplings!

Kay Oct 7, 2012
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We’ve already shared with you recently on our site the tasty ice cream treats in Halloween flavors available this month from Baskin Robins Japan. Not to be outdone by the ice cream chain in getting into the Halloween spirit, one of our reporters at Pouch decided to make her own special Halloween sweets – an excellent idea if you want to celebrate Halloween without the hassle of putting up and taking down decorations, and also storing the ornaments, which can take up valuable space.

Our reporter shares with you below how you can make adorable, bite-sized Jack O’ Lantern dumpling cakes using actual pumpkins. Not only are they cute to look at, they’re super easy to make, requiring the use of only a microwave and simple toaster oven.

[How to make Sweet Pumkin Halloween Dumplings]

Ingredients (for 8 bite-sized dumplings):
Pumpkin: 300g (10.6 oz)
Butter: 15g (1/2 oz)
Milk: 1 Tablespoon
Brandy or Whisky: 2 Tablespoons
Egg Yolk: 1
Vanilla Essence: A few drops
Powdered Cinnamon: Add According to preference
Sugar: Add According to preference

Instructions:
1. Peel and cut the pumpkin into small pieces. Using a silicone steamer, heat the pumpkin in a microwave (about 5-8 min) until they’re soft enough to mash easily with a fork. (If you don’t have a silicone steamer, you can heat the pumpkin in a bowl covered with plastic wrap.) You should keep the pumpkin peel you remove at the beginning as you’ll use it later to decorate the dumpling.

2. Mix the pumpkin and all other ingredients except the egg yolk in a bowl. Check how sweet the pumpkin tastes at this point and add sugar accordingly. Mash the pumpkin with a fork mixing the ingredients well and let the mixture cool.

3. Using plastic wrap, take appropriate amounts of the pumpkin mixture and shape them into round dumplings. With the wrap still on, create grooves in the dumplings with a toothpick to make them look like pumpkins.

4. Heat the pumpkin peel removed earlier in a microwave for about 4 minutes, then cut them into the shape of Jack O’ Lantern face parts. Sticking these onto the dumpling will work better if you remove as much of the actual pumpkin from the peel as possible.

5. After you finish sticking the face parts onto the dumplings, place a sheet of cooking paper (you can also use aluminum foil if you don’t have cooking paper) on the toaster oven tray. Brush the egg yolk onto the dumplings.

6. Heat the dumplings until they get slightly toasted (about 3 min), and your Halloween pumpkin dumplings are done!

So, how does that sound? While making the dumplings (specifically at Step 5), our reporter felt the Jack O’ Lantern dumplings were slightly lacking in the “cute” factor, so she decided to make some bear dumplings as well.

Our reporter assures us that these sweet pumpkin treats are really easy to make, so we hope you give it a try!

Original Article by: Hotaru Yamakawa
[ Read in Japanese ]