Mini Pumpkin Cakes

For the Cake

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

For the Buttercream

1 lb confectioners' sugar
1 cup salted butter room temp
1/4 cup milk add in slowly until you achieve desired consistency
1 tsp vanilla extract
10 drops orange food coloring Amount of food coloring will depend on brand used and desired color.

For the Cake

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour your mini bundt pans.
Cream the oils and sugar together, then add in the yogurt and mix until combined.
Mix in eggs one at a time, making sure one egg is incorporated into the mixture before adding the next.
In a separate bowl sift the remaining dry ingredients together.
Mix dry ingredients into the sugar/egg mixture in three batches alternating with the pumpkin puree. Mix until just combined.
Spoon or pipe your batter into the pans, filling 2/3 the way up.
Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until wooden skewer inserted into center comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan for about 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until it is smooth. Add in vanilla and powdered sugar and mix until ingredients are well-incorporated and desired consistency is reached.
For the Buttercream
Beat butter until light and fluffy, add vanilla and then slowly add sugar. Add milk a few tablespoons at a time until desired consistency is reached. You will want a stiffer buttercream so you might be using less milk. Finally add in the food coloring.

Assembly

Cut bottoms off cakes (less if you want tall pumpkins, more if you want rounder ones).
Pipe or smear cream cheese frosting onto the bottom of one mini bundt cake and sandwich together.
Cover in orange buttercream and sculpt into a pumpkin shape. (I cut a yogurt container up to make my tools. The best ones were a rounded off "V" to scrape the indents and a straight edge to sooth the sides)
Top with a stem. I used a real pumpkin stem but you can make one from fondant or even very thick buttercream.

If you fill the mini bundt forms about half way up there will be enough batter to make about 10 or so pumpkins. I ended up cutting a lot off the bottom from each cake to get a rounder pumpkin. The excess makes a great snack or can be used to make pumpkin cake pops!
I used real pumpkin stems for these cakes to give the most realistic appearance. I just bought a "Cinderella" pumpkin because they have a long stem then cut a few segments off with some garden clippers.
You could also make the stems from some fondant or thick buttercream, but it wouldn't look quite as real and takes more time.
The KEY to decorating these cakes is to chill them after you apply and smooth the buttercream. Once chilled you can do some sculpting and then chill again if the cake softens up too much.

I used real pumpkin stems for these cakes to give the most realistic appearance. I just bought a “Cinderella” pumpkin because they have a long stem then cut a few segments off with some garden clippers.
You could also make the stems from some fondant or thick buttercream, but it wouldn’t look quite as real and takes more time.
The KEY to decorating these cakes is to chill them after you apply and smooth the buttercream. Once chilled you can do some sculpting and then chill again if the cake softens up too much.
The best shaping tool I can recommend is a yogurt container you cut into half circles and rounded points. These pieces will flex and give you better control when shaping and smoothing the pumpkins.
Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. The best, and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one then fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
After you cover your cakes in buttercream, I recommend chilling them in the fridge for about 20 minutes so they will be easier to sculpt. If you’re making a bunch of them you can have a little assembly line going with cakes coming into and out of the fridge