Pumpkin Cheesecake Popovers

A few weeks ago, I made these pumpkin cheesecake popovers for Book Swap.  It is not my recipe; I found it on Pinterest, but I've been asked to share it so many times, I thought I'd post it.  The recipe hails from the food blog, Willow Bird Baking.

I had never made any kind of popover before and I thought you had to have a special $60 Williams-Sonoma popover pan to make them.  Turns out, not true.  All you need is a mini muffin pan.

The hardest parts of this recipe for me were cutting the dough into 3x4" squares & twisting the ends of the dough together & getting them to stick.  Anytime I have to measure & cut anything, it's a disaster because, math.

I kept over-filling them, so when I'd go to twist the ends, I couldn't get the ends to touch or stay together & then the filling would spill out.  I fully expected these to explode while baking, but they totally stayed together & came out looking like popovers.  It was a fall miracle!

I didn't serve these over ice cream because I made them the day before I served them at Book Swap, but I did drizzle them with caramel sauce.  I ate 3 right out of the oven, like you do, & then ate a couple at room temp the next day.  As good as they are at room temp, they're even better warm & I bet they're 100 times better with ice cream.

These are shockingly easy to make & they're DELICIOUS.  I cut the recipe in half & had zero left over, so depending on your crowd, you may want to make the full recipe.  They're not that big (remember:  mini muffin pan).

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE POPOVERS

Adapted from Willow Bird Baking

Yield: 39 popovers (full recipe)

INGREDIENTS:

4 cans crescent rolls

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

5/8 cup sugar (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons)

1 egg

2 cups canned pumpkin

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

*2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling

*1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

*1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

*1/2 teaspoon ginger

powdered sugar for sprinkling

caramel sauce and ice cream for serving

*or substitute 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice for these spices

(I used Hey Boo Caramel Sauce from Hey Rooster General Store, which I HIGHLY recommend)

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray two mini muffin pans with cooking spray.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice, and beat to combine. Cover and chill while you prepare the dough.

3.  Unroll one can of crescent baking sheet dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to around 9 x 12 inches. Cut it using a pizza cutter into 9 squares, roughly 3 x 4 inches each. Place the squares into wells of the mini muffin tins, skipping a well between each. Gently push the squares down into the well. Spoon a heaping spoonful of the pumpkin mixture into each well and pinch the corners of the dough together around it, twisting at the top to close. 

4.  Bake for 10-14 minutes or until browned (let them get good and golden or they’ll still be doughy in the middle.) Remove from the oven and top with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Let them cool in the pan for around 5 minutes before serving them in a bowl with heaping scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and caramel drizzle.