Pumpkin Cream Cheese Thanksgiving Truffles

Approximately 12 years ago, I made pretty much the best dessert ever for my parent’s Thanksgiving dinner party: Mini turkeys. That’s right. Painstakingly hand-made mini turkeys consisting of a Hershey’s kiss and Oreo cookie body, candy corn feathers, and cut up Twizzlers for the wattle. Finishing those turkeys constituted basically the proudest moment of my life up to that point. Someone (besides my parents) even complimented me on them!

But then . . . no one ate them. Correction: I ate two. One brave adult ate one. And two of my friends, also around the age of 10, each ate one. Sad life. I’ve tried to block out that particular dessert experience from my mind for many years. Now, though, as I reflect back upon my first dessert rejection, I guess I (sorta kinda) get it.

I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily want to eat a mashup of store-bought candy masquerading as a dessert that had been touched and molded into shape with the possibly dirty (but I always washed my hands with soap – even under my fingernails!!!) fingers of a ten-year-old. I’m going on record now, though, to say that if I come across those lovely mini turkeys in my Thanksgiving festivities this year, I promise to eat one. Scratch that. I’m getting five of those suckers. Props to little kids who believe in their dessert craft!

In an effort to avoid the pain of rejection, though, I decided to create a more adult palate friendly dessert this year. And it’s still shaped like a turkey. Hah! Though it can be traditionally truffle shaped for those who so desire. As I considered different food combinations in my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about pumpkin and cream cheese. So, I didn’t. Instead, I used them, along with some powdered sugar, graham cracker crumbs, and pumpkin pie spice as the filling for my truffles. Ermahgawd. I would most definitely eat this filling by itself. In a bowl – no melted chocolate covering or decoration needed.

S’mores Truffles

Let’s play two truths and a lie:

1. Once, to combat the Monday-morning work blues, I ate s’mores for breakfast.
2. When I’m craving campfire marshmallows, I roast marshmallows on a chopstick over my stove.
3. Last summer, in desperate s’mores withdrawal, I microwaved two chocolate chips and one mini marshmallow onto a wheat thin.

So maybe I’m not very good at lying…because all of these are true. I may also be a freak. A crazy lover of marshmallows that are crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. A strong believer that rectangles of Hershey’s chocolate are the only acceptable choice for authentic campfire s’mores. The very type of girl who might make you…these:

What are these, you ask? Guess, guess! …no guessing? Fine. These, my friends, are little scoops of dark chocolate ganache, covered in homemade marshmallow fluff, and rolled in graham cracker crumbs. Oh man.

A lot of things about that sentence excite me, but probably none as much as the concept of homemade marshmallow fluff!

This cloudy pillow of goodness is so easy to make. So marshmallow-y. Thus, oh so dangerous. And, okay, I’m calling it marshmallow fluff, but it’s actually based on a recipe for 7-minute frosting – that miracle of light, whipped, shiny frosting that takes only 7 minutes to make (with most of that time spent in the stand mixer). Seriously wicked (good) stuff.