{taste this} pumpkin spice petits fours

Welcome to the 4th recipe in my fall baking series!  If you missed the others, check out my tasty stuff page for golden oatmeal muffins, pumpkin layer dessert and mini pumpkin pie croissants as well as allllllll the other recipes I've posted here on shaken together - savory and sweet!  This week, for {taste this} I am sharing  pumpkin spice petits fours!!

(And thank you Google - I had to re-edit all my pictures when I saw that the plural of petit four was petits fours - gotta love good grammar!)

SO, we've probably all seen Bakerella's cake pops and tons of variations floating around online - I mean, she's legendary and they are {amazing}, no?!  My recipe uses the same technique of baking the cake, crumbling it, adding frosting, forming them and dipping in chocolate ... but I've tweaked a spice cake boxed cake mix and made them into gorgeous little petits fours!  I'm pretty excited about this one if you can't tell by all the exclamation points!!!

I started with a boxed spice cake mix and substituted 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) for the oil.  The texture of the cake, once baked, is AWESOME - fluffy and moist!  But alas, we're going to crumble it all up in a big bowl and incorporate almost a full can of cream cheese frosting - I find using the back of a fork really mixes the frosting into the cake crumbs well.

Now, spread your mixture on a large sheet pan lined with foil or waxed paper.  This will take a little coaxing to get it to spread out.  I used the back of a spatula and then laid some plastic wrap over the top to smooth it out a little more with my hands.

Now, use a ruler or another flat edge over plastic wrap to make shallow indentions in the mixture - both vertically and horizontally ... can you see the beginning of the petits fours?

Remove the plastic wrap and stick your sheet pan in the fridge for about 4 hours and then in the freezer for 1 hour.  Your mixture should be well chilled and firm.

Using a sharp knife, separate your petit four squares.  You can reshape any rough edges with your fingers.  Place these squares on a sheet tray lined with wax paper and pop them back in the fridge while you get the almond bark ready.

Heat almond bark (or melting chocolate or even white chocolate chips) according to the directions and add a few tablespoons of shortening and incorporate it well.  This makes the almond bark thinner and I find it is easier to dip in.

Because cake and frosting dipped in almond bark isn't quite enough ;) spread a bit of your remaining frosting in between two of the cake mixture squares before dipping it in the almond bark.

Using a plastic fork, dip each petit four in the almond bark and return it to the sheet tray.  This is definitely messy and drippy but SO fun :)  Allow to set.  If you work quick, you can add seasonal sprinkles or a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice while the almond bark is still wet.

These are delightfully sweet and spicy and rich and probably not on any diet, but it's fall and there are parties to take these to and they are just SO pretty and delicious!!

I am sharing this recipe at the {holiday sweet swap} - my 1st holiday/seasonal link party that is open through December 31st!  Need a recipe?  Have a recipe?  SHARE a recipe!  There are 90 recipes - help us hit triple digits!  I'll be featuring some of my favorites on Pinterest and Facebook and my two fantastic co-hosts each month will also feature recipes and share the word about the party!

This post was shared at the parties on my Link page!