Recipes for your pumpkin leftovers

Carving pumpkins has slowly become something of an annual tradition to mark Halloween, with people lighting up their spooky creations on 31st October (or 30th October in Kilmarnock!).

The activity is now so popular that the UK is expected to waste around 18,000 tonnes of perfectly edible pumpkin this Halloween – but the leftovers can be put to good use.

Instead of throwing out your pumpkin innards once you have finished carving, why not turn them into something delicious? Like, these Pumpkin Cupcakes?

PUMPKIN & SULTANA CUPCAKES

Ingredients

Cupcakes

  • 175ml vegetable oil
  • 175g light brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 200g grated pumpkin
  • 100g sultanas
  • 1 orange
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp mixed spice
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • 200g cream cheese
  • 1 orange
  • 100g icing sugar
  • Optional toasted nuts

Method

Cupcakes

  1. Pre heat an oven to 170c and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases, you are allowed to bring out the inner child in you by using Halloween themed ones. Put the oil, sugar and eggs into a bowl and whisk until they are all incorporated evenly.
  2. Now add in your grated pumpkin make sure to squeeze any excess juice out of it before adding it and the sultanas into the bowl.
  3. Zest the orange then into a separate bowl sieve the cinnamon, mixed spice, flour and the bicarbonate of soda before adding everything together and folding it in with a spatula.
  4. Carefully spoon this into your 12 cases and bake for 25 minutes, they should be springy to touch. Once cooked place them on a cooling wire.

Cream Cheese Frosting

  1. Beat the cream cheese until its smooth then zest and juice orange before adding into the mix.
  2. Sieve the icing sugar into it and really beat hard until you get a smooth paste, put into a clean bowl and cling film before refrigerating until it starts to firm up.
  3. Now pipe onto the now cool cakes before topping with a selection of toasted nuts. I like pecans or flaked almonds best.

We hope you enjoy creating this recipe and sharing with your friends.

Happy Halloween!!