Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate Truffles are smooth and creamy chocolate truffles, decorated to look like pumpkins and packed with pumpkin spice flavor! These clever truffles have a secret–when you add them to hot milk, they dissolve and make the most delicious pumpkin spice hot chocolate!
On one hand, it feels a little early in the year to be posting pumpkin recipes.
On the other hand, my local craft stores have had Halloween supplies out for at least a solid month by now, so I’m just trying to keep up with the Michael’s and JoAnn’s of the world. Also, my family drinks hot chocolate year-round, so this one has been in heavy rotation at our house lately, and you deserve to have the same. Also also, pumpkin spice is freaking delicious and should be an anytime flavor.
In conclusion, we’re doing this pumpkin thing, so haters to the left. <——-
These clever little Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate Truffles are two desserts in one. They’re truffles, yes, filled with pumpkin spice flavor and decorated to look like adorable miniature pumpkins. (pause for squealing here) A whole platter of them, all lined up in cute little rows, would make a perfect fall party treat or edible gift.
But. BUT! Add them to a mug of hot milk, whisk whisk whisk, and you have a delicious cup of pumpkin spice-flavored hot chocolate. Dessert recipes that do double duty? Sign me up!
Making these is surprisingly easy, too! If you can microwave and whisk things, YOU can make them! They get those signature pumpkin ridges from a very fancy tool I call a “wooden skewer,” although a long toothpick would work just as well. No fancy-pants equipment here!
In fact, the only “specialty” ingredient I used was some broken bits of chocolate batons for the pumpkin stems, and that’s only because I had them left over from the Black Forest Cake I made earlier in the year. You could just as easily cut up a chocolate bar into small shards and use that for the stems instead.
The best way I can think to describe these truffles is COZY. One bite and you’ll want to be wearing fuzzy socks in front of a fire, guaranteed. (Bear skin rug entirely optional.)
When you’re done stuffing yourself silly with the regular truffles, heat up a glass of milk until it’s hot but not boiling. Drop a truffle into the cup, make like Bob Marley and stir it up, little darling, and in a few moments you’re holding a rich mug of pumpkin spice hot chocolate! Of course you COULD just drink it plain, but I’d be a bad food blogger if I didn’t suggest you top it with a bit of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Ready to make some candy magic? Check out the how-to video, then find the printable recipe down below!
Troubleshooting Tip:
Please make sure you are measuring the chocolate by WEIGHT. It calls for 18 oz of chocolate, as measured on a kitchen scale. I’m specifying this because I get a lot of questions about this, especially from Americans who are used to using cup measurements, and who have been taught that 8 oz is 1 cup.
It is true that 8 fluid ounces (of liquid) is 1 cup, but it is NOT true that 1 cup of every substance weighs 8 ounces on the scale. In fact, 1 cup of finely chopped chocolate is about 6 ounces. If you try to make this recipe by measuring the chopped chocolate in cups, using the “1 cup = 8 ounces” rule, you will shortchange the chocolate and end up with a very soft truffle mixture that will be hard to roll.
If you do end up with a ganache that is too soft to roll, you can warm it up and whisk in a few additional ounces of melted chocolate, then let it chill again. Adding more chocolate will firm up the ganache and hopefully save your truffles!
🍁More Pumpkin Desserts You’ll Love:
If you love pumpkin as much as I do, check out my collection of pumpkin dessert recipes! Here are just a few of my favorites:
Pumpkin Pie Mousse Cups
Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake
Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate Truffles
Ingredients
- 18 oz semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 8 fl oz heavy cream, (1 cup)
- 2 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or more to taste
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 12 oz orange candy coating melts
- Chocolate batons, or chocolate shards for the pumpkin stems
Instructions
- Combine the semi-sweet chocolate, heavy cream, cocoa powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla in a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on full strength for 1 minute, then whisk well. If any chocolate chunks remain, return to the microwave and heat in 15-second bursts, whisking well after each interval, until the mixture is smooth and shiny. Press a layer of plastic wrap directly on top of the chocolate, and refrigerate the bowl for about 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop and roll.
- Dust your hands with a light coating of cocoa powder. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop a golf ball-sized ball of chocolate into your hands, and roll it into a smooth, even ball. (If you want to use a scale, each truffle should be about 1.75 oz.) You should get 14 large truffles from the batch.
- If the balls are very soft, return them to the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes before proceeding. Otherwise, use a wooden skewer, and press it into the sides of the truffles, giving the sides of the truffle ridges like a pumpkin. Refrigerate if necessary, until the truffles are firm.
- Melt the orange candy coating in the microwave, stirring until completely smooth. Press a long toothpick firmly into the top of one of the truffles, and holding it by the toothpick, dip it in the orange candy coating until the truffle is completely covered. Let the excess drip back into the bowl, and gently scrape the bottom of the truffle against the lip of the bowl.
- Place the dipped truffle on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or waxed paper, and gently twist the toothpick to remove it from the truffle. (If necessary, you can hold the truffle down in place with a second toothpick while you twist.) While the coating is still wet, break off a piece of a chocolate baton or a shard of chocolate, and press it into the hole left by the toothpick to be the pumpkin’s stem.
- Repeat with the remaining truffles, until all are dipped and decorated. Refrigerate the tray briefly to set the orange candy coating, for about 15 minutes.
- The truffles can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. For the best taste and texture, serve them at room temperature. To turn them into hot chocolate, heat 8 oz of milk in a mug. Add a pumpkin spice truffle to the hot milk, and whisk until the truffle melts and you have a mug of rich hot chocolate. For the ultimate indulgence, top the hot chocolate with a swirl of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
Video
Recipe Notes
Measuring Tips
Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.
Want to learn more about baking measurements and conversion?
Nutrition
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Update: so like I said previously…i make truffles all the time. I followed this recipe to a tee and now all I have is a gooey mess that is impossible to clean…
Think I’m gonna try my own truffle recipe and see if I can get this to work.
I’m sorry to hear this didn’t work out for you. What did you sub for the milk? What kind of chocolate did you use? This recipe uses approx a 2:1 ratio of chocolate:liquid by weight (about 3:1 by volume) which is fairly standard for truffles and shouldn’t produce a “gooey” texture, but depending on the specific ingredients it’s possible that was the culprit. Did you measure the chocolate by weight? It sounds like not enough chocolate or too much liquid.
Feel free to reach out by email if you’d like help troubleshooting further. I will also be demonstrating it on Facebook Live this Sunday!
These were PHENOMENAL! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bother tracking down the creamer just for this recipe, but I’m glad that I did! I used Lindt chocolate bars and the truffles were perfect. I ate one plain, and am saving the rest for hot chocolate for family night. Thank you for the recipe!
I think either the milk chocolate is making my batch stay softer or maybe I should have added more dark chocolate to account for that. Either way these are going to be great! Can’t wait to try!
Yes, milk and white chocolate behave very differently than dark chocolate in recipes! The dairy elements make them set softer, and as a result the ratio of chocolate to liquid needs to be different when using milk chocolate. Hope you still enjoyed them!
Or you can buy 2 12oz bags of chips and use one and a half bags. No actual measuring necessary. For a hot chocolate I’d make them big. But for eating, especially at a party, I’d make them 1 or 1.25 oz balls. I think I’ll give this a go for a Halloween party I’m attending next weekened.
You can definitely estimate that way. I’ve gotten some comments about the texture of the ganache being too soft, so in an effort to help people troubleshoot and avoid problems, I like to err on the side of precision. 🙂 Please let me know how they turn out if you give them a try!
I’ve tried making these twice and followed the recipe to the letter but the resulting truffle mix was way too soft! They tasted great but did not turn into those cute pumpkins. Instead they looked like orange colored jagged blobs!
Hi Melissa! I’m sorry to hear the truffles didn’t work out for you. To be honest, I’m a little baffled. I’ve had a few other readers report similar things, and I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it. I’ve tested this recipe a LOT (like, a ridiculous amount of times) and never have a truffle mixture that’s too soft. I even made them on FB live last month, to show all the steps and the texture at each stage and to try and help people troubleshoot. You might be interested in checking it out if you haven’t seen it already:
https://www.facebook.com/SugarHero/videos/1617841504954851/
My only thought is, if you’re positive that all of the ingredients were measured properly, is that differences in the brand of chocolate might account for the different texture. You didn’t use milk chocolate by any chance, did you? Did you measure by weight or by volume? One of the problems is that people rarely respond to my follow-up questions, which is fine, but it means I have a hard time figuring out where they (or my recipe) might have gone wrong. You’re also always welcome to email me and I can try and help troubleshoot in further detail that way!
Ok first of all, this is freaking DELICIOUS and I cannot get enough of this hot chocolate. But I too experienced a majorly soft truffle.
I used about three cups (I don’t have a kitchen scale and three cups seemed like the right math using your troubleshooting tip) of semisweet chocolate (Nestle brand) and one cup of the creamer. After about two hours in the freezer they did mostly hold their shape, but as soon as I picked them up to put the indents in the sides it started melting in my hands. And after I chilled the ones that were still sort of spherical they started melting as soon as I put them in the orange chocolate. It fell off the skewer too which was a little bit of a panic moment for me. I would love some advice if you have any! I have pictures I can send you if that would help.
Again, it’s DELICIOUS and I’m going to melt these dudes down again and add more chocolate cause I want it to work, but I would love any help you could offer! 🙂
Becky, thank you for the comment, and I’m sorry that the truffles turned out soft for you. I’m guessing you might have read my previous comment about this, but I really want to get to the bottom of this! Since it sounds like you did everything right, I am thinking it is an issue with using chocolate chips. I have been testing with a chopped 65% cacao bar instead of chips. Chips are typically thicker when melted, since they don’t have as much cocoa butter, and I didn’t think that substituting chips would have a big impact on the final texture, or if anything, that they would make the truffles stiffer, not softer.
I am going to test these with chocolate chips asap, because I am truly baffled why they work for some people and not for others. I’ve made them a LOT, including on FB Live, and haven’t been able to reproduce the soft issue. Stay tuned! And the good news is that you should definitely be able to add more melted chocolate to get them to firm up. 🙂
Live demonstration, if you’re curious:
https://www.facebook.com/SugarHero/videos/1617841504954851/
I’ll second Becky’s experience above . . . accept I used a scale to measure the (Nestle Semi-Sweet Real Chocolate) chips (and the creamer as well – Mom used the old “Hanson Cook O Meter” for measuring just about everything).
Too soft and sticky, rolled in cocoa to keep them off my hands, put in freezer for 3 hours.
Used Ghirardelli melting wafers / food coloring to make the orange dip . . . the first one or two worked ok – not great, but pretty soon the balls were getting soft, and toward the end, essentially melting in the dip . . . second to the last one is just a jagged blob, last one went straight into my mouth with a spoon because it was too much a mess (and there wasn’t nearly enough dip left to dip it into).
I thought it tasted way too sweet, but I’m not big on chocolate. We’ll see what the fam says tomorrow night when we have our party.
I’m so sorry you had trouble with this! Because of the feedback from you, and Becky and others I did a lot of testing. I had always made this recipe with chopped 65% chocolate. I tried it with the nestle chocolate chips and I found it was much sweeter and significantly softer. My first recommendation would be to use chopped chocolate bars, but if those are not available to you I think 24oz of chocolate chips is a better quantity to get the right texture. I also found that after several days in the fridge the ganache stiffened up quite a bit. So if you did find it too soft you can either melt it and add additional melted chocolate to it, or let it sit several days in the fridge. Let me know how it goes!
Planning on doing these with heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk, flavored with rum extract and nutmeg.
Shaping like boxes and turning into presents for eggnog hot chocolate!
Sounds cute and delicious!
Where do you buy the chocolate batons? Thank you!
I found them at cost plus world market, I haven’t looked online. My suggestion would be to just chop up a chocolate bar if you don’t have any luck. Thanks so much!
when people share their recipes, they tell you exactly what they used in order to do make it. i’ll never understand why people say, “i swapped this for this and this for this and it didn’t work out! UGH!” use the exact things that elizabeth used and they will come out perfect! mine did. also, it’s not elizabeth’s job to include food allergies and that comment was more than unnecessary. i’m always baffled when i read comments that people leave on such a lovely post.
elizabeth, thank you for sharing a great recipe!
Hey Ashleigh, Thanks so much for following along!!