Recipes

Puffed Rice Pumpkins

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp of butter (use vegan butter if desired)
• 3 cups of puffed rice (I used puffed brown rice)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups (or 1 bag) of marshmallows (use vegan marshmallows if desired)
• Pretzel sticks for the stems
• Orange food colouring
• Optional: pumpkin seeds for a touch of green

Directions:

1. Melt butter on low in a medium-large pot. Once melted add in vanilla, and orange food colouring and mix well. Add in the marshmallows, stir, and cover with a lid for 2 minutes.
2. Keep checking on the marshmallows until you see them start to melt. Vegan marshmallows do take slightly longer to melt but placing the lid on top does help speed up the process. Stir the marshmallows until mostly smooth and add more orange food colouring if desired. There will still be some chunks of marshmallows but it's okay. Just stir until most of the mixture is smooth.
3. Turn the heat to the lowest setting if it isn't already and add in half of the puffed rice. Work quickly as the mixture will become increasingly harder to stir and you want to get as much of the puffed rice coated as possible. Once it becomes too hard to mix, remove the pot from the heat and fold everything over itself a few times. I tend to work by the sink so that I can run my hands under cold water as needed but you can also just put a bowl of cold water beside. Once the batch is cool enough to handle, fold in the mixture with your hands if there are any spots that might need to be coated a bit better.
4. Begin forming little pumpkin-shaped balls. Squeeze them together so they hold. Break a pretzel stick in half and insert the cut side into the middle of the ball. Add the two pumpkin seeds for colour if desired. Store in an air-tight container on the counter for 3 days or in the fridge for 3-5 days. Enjoy!

Thanks to @kaitlyndickie