Peanut Butter Pumpkins

After being gone for most of the month of October, John came home the day before Halloween, and asked if I was making any cute treats this month so he could take to his home teaching families. So on the last day of the month, I scraped these together. I made these as little toppers for the chocolate praline cupcakes from my last post, and they turned out pretty cute. I also piped little vines coming out of the top, but circumstances being what they were, never got a picture of the finished product. Also only two out of three families answered their phones that day, so somebody missed out on treats cause even though I'm sure they would have forgiven a Nov. 1st visit, I ended up dumping the rest of the pumpkins on the ground by accident. However, the good news is that while squished and ugly, they were still very tasty.

In years past I have made eyeballs, using a white candy coating and put m&m's on the top, then used black and red icing to make the pupil and the blood shot veins, but this year I went with something different. I still had a lot of red and yellow candy melts left over from the chocolate chip cookies, so I made little pumpkins using green Jelly Bellys for the stem.

Peanut Butter Pumpkins

1/2 cup peanut butter

3 Tbsp. butter, softened

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

4 oz orange colored candy coating

20 green Jelly Belly beans

green decorator icing

In a mixing bowl stir together peanut butter and butter. Gradually add powdered sugar, stirring, until combined. Shape into 1-inch balls; place on waxed paper. Let stand about 2- minutes or until dry. Melt candy coating in small saucepan over low heat. Dip balls, one at a time, into coating. Let excess coating drip off peanut butter balls. Place on waxed paper. Immediately stick Jelly Belly bean into top. Let stand until coating is firm. Using green icing, make curly vines coming out of top of pumpkin.