“The 12-step chocoholics program: Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate!”

~ Terry Moore

I know, I know! Pumpkin in June! It sounds crazy but when you get a craving – you get a craving! And, I’m not the only mad one in my family – my mother has requested a pumpkin pie for her birthday which is at the end of the month. Thankfully, what with our local Tesco having tins of pumpkin available all year round, indulging in the yumminess that is that autumn vegetable is easily sorted.

The following recipe is an idea I’ve been playing around with for a while. Of course, it was mostly inspired by the wonderful Jhuls @The Not So Creative Cook and her amazing French Toast Nutella Roll-ups (a firm favourite with my two little helpers) but also by a memory of one Thanksgiving a long time ago. I was in college at the time and I was visiting my family in Omaha. My cousin, Bets, was making cheesecake for the dinner later on that night and her cheesecake was composed of chocolate and pumpkin. OH MY GOSH! The deliciousness of that cake has stayed with me since then. It was amazing! I’ve thought about it on and off over the years and when I got a craving recently for some pumpkin pie (we had a tin of pumpkin in our press), instead I decided to marry the pumpkin with Nutella and these wonderful, chocolate-y, pumpkin-y bites of hot deliciousness were born.

In fairness, to myself, I should let you know that I’ve been planning this recipe for a few months in my head but I only got round to making it last week for a PhD party as my sister had passed her PhD viva, which is an oral defense of her PhD, and we wanted to celebrate this achievement. My other sister made a fantastic dinner of cashew chicken and fried rice and several wonderful salads – and I made dessert.

The first batch of the pumpkin had a bit too much cloves in it but when I made the second batch of pumpkin, I reduced the amount and it was much better. I also upped the amount of Nutella and I think that these changes made them even better. These are quite rich and very filling so I would count 2 per adult. The Melon wasn’t overly keen on these but The Jam liked them a little. There is a fair amount of the pumpkin filling, so you could halve it and adjust the spices according to your own tastes. Otherwise, you could make these for breakfast over a few days.

I am sharing this recipe at Fiesta Friday #123 which is hosted by Angie. You should check out the other wonderful entries there as well as Angie’s co-hosts Margy @ La Petite Casserole and Linda @ La Petite Paniere.

Pumpkin and Nutella French Toast Roll-ups

Makes about 30 roll-ups*

Ingredients

• Pumpkin mix
  • 1 cup tinned pumpkin**
  • ¾-1 cup icing sugar
  • 3 -4 tbsp cream cheese
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • ¼-½ tsp ginger
  • ¼ tsp nutmeg
  • ¼ tsp cloves
• approximately 30 slices white bread
• Nutella
• 4 eggs
• 6 tbsp milk
• ½ cup white granulated sugar
• 1-2 tsp cinnamon
• Butter for frying

Method

1. In a large bowl, place all the ingredients for the pumpkin mix into a bowl and then mix well together, set aside.
2. In a shallow bowl, or rimmed plate, whisk together the eggs and milk, set aside
3. On a plate mix together the cinnamon and granulated sugar, set aside.
4. Roll each slice of bread as thinly as possible with a rolling pin. You can remove the crust if you want as it makes for easier rolling.
5. Taking a heaped teaspoonful of Nutella and spread on half of one slice of rolled up bread, horizontally. Take a level teaspoon of the pumpkin mix and spread over the other half.
6. Roll the bread to close over the fillings until it forms a tube.
7. Repeat steps 5-6 until you have used all the bread that you want or until the filling is all gone.
8. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and melt the butter.
9. Meanwhile, roll each tube into the egg and milk mixture,  and then transfer, seam-side down in the frying pan. Fit as many filled bread tubes as you comfortably can into the frying pan. My frying pan took about 5 at a time.
10. Cook until browned on each side and then remove from the heat and roll in the cinnamon-sugar.
11. Eat as is, or serve with maple syrup and whipped cream. You can also serve as a side dish with eggs, sausages, pudding and rashers/bacon.

*We left the crusts on the bread, out of pure laziness, but if you take them off you would get a few more roll-ups out of the mixture. I used Brennan’s sliced pan to make my roll-ups but depending on the size of the bread you are using you could end up making more or less of these roll-ups. Good news, the pumpkin mix keeps for a few days, so you can have them, again and again and again.

** These are approximate measurements for the cream cheese, spices and sugar. I started with the lower end of each measurement, then I tasted the filling and decided to add a little more, but you can adjust according to your own tastes. However, I would keep the cloves and nutmeg at no more than a ¼tsp as they can be quite overpowering to taste.

Tips

Leftover pumpkin:  If, like me, you’ve used a tin of pumpkin puree, you will have some leftovers from the tin. I was able, due to testing this recipe, to use everything up during the week but if that isn’t the case for you, I’d suggest freezing any leftovers until you want to use them or follow these tips from The Kitchn.