No Bake Pumpkin Truffles (6 Ingredients, Vegan & Gluten Free)

No Bake 6 ingredient Pumpkin Truffles (a cozy autumnal dessert with minimal effort)

it is no secret that i love a better-for-you sweet treat and what better way to make dessert more nutritional than turning a vegetable into a decadent sweet treat! these no bake pumpkin spice truffles are the perfect example of how a balanced and intentionally nourishing dessert can still satisfy your sweet tooth.

how this recipe came about: although pumpkin season is my favourite baking szn, i was running a bit late with it this year (and by late i may mean on time lol) i feel like as soon as we are in the last couple of weeks of August all of social media turns into pumpkin mode so posting my first pumpkin recipe in October feels like a crime in the foodie IG/foodtok world (sorry!)

so i have been recipe testing a whole bunch of pumpkin recipes back to back trying to catch up tehe, and if you have ever baked with canned pumpkin before you will know exactly what comes with it; the awkward amount of leftover puree sitting in your fridge that you have absolutely no clue what to do with. after multiple rounds of testing with it i decided to make these no bake pumpkin truffles as a solution to that exact problem. all you need is your leftover canned pumpkin, just 6 ingredients, a food processor and 10 minutes. the best part is unlike any other baked pumpkin good, these are ready to eat as soon as the chocolate is set!

these pumpkin spice truffles taste like the filling of a pumpkin pie rolled into a ball and dipped in the most satisfying dark chocolate shell. the inside is soft + fudgy rather than cakey, and the chocolate sets into a little snap before you hit the spiced pumpkin middle. now i will say it upfront, they are not the prettiest things i have ever made, before the chocolate goes on they look like lil orange mud balls lol but they are delish and the dark chocolate pairs perfectly with the pumpkin while making them look a touch cuter!

the 130g of pumpkin puree is the amount i find i normally have left in a tin. most tins are around 400g, so after a loaf or a batch of muffins you are usually left with somewhere between 100 and 150g which is the most awkward amount to be stuck with. so i developed these around the leftover rather than around a tidy full tin. if you have slightly more or less, that is fine, you can just adjust the oat flour to match which i will get into. one thing to flag, make sure you are using pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling. the filling is already sweetened and spiced and it will throw the whole recipe off.

onto the dates, which are doing two jobs here; the sweetener and the binder. i use 3 to 5 soft pitted medjool dates depending on how sweet you want them and how sweet ur tin of pumpkin is as some are just 100% pumpkin and other brands have sugar added. the one non-negotiable is that the dates need to be SOFT. if ur dates are dry and a bit leathery lol, soak them in warm water for 15 minutes first, otherwise they will not break down in the food processor and you end up with chewy bits of date running through the batter instead of a smooth fudgy one. nutritionally this is also why i use dates because the sugar in a medjool date comes packaged with fibre, potassium and magnesium rather than on its own. and if you love a dessert that leans on dates as much as this one does, you have to try my blueberry chocolate date bark too, it is soft medjool dates layered with a homemade blueberry jam under a dark chocolate shell and there is nothing else sweetening it.

pureed pumpkin is the star of this recipe and it is my favourite ingredient here from a nutritional POV. the science behind the colour is beta carotene, which your body converts into vitamin A, and it is the same compound that gives carrots and sweet potatoes that orange hue. beta carotene is fat soluble, so the almond butter and the dark chocolate in this recipe are actually helping you absorb it better which is an added bonus. pumpkin is also very low in calories for the volume it gives you, which is how these end up feeling more substantial than their calorie count suggests. and if you cannot get puree where you are, or you just have leftover sweet potato instead, swap it one for one! the flavour profile is very similar, slightly sweeter, and honestly it lands closer to sweet potato pie truffles than pumpkin pie truffles at that point lol, but still a very delicious autumnal sweet treat.

the almond butter is only a tablespoon but it adds a lot of extra flavour. it is the only real fat in the batter and fat is what makes a no bake truffle fudgy. you can sub it for any nut or seed butter, almond, tahini and cashew work best here flavour wise so just note that the taste will change depending on what you use. tahini takes it a bit more sesame-y and halva like against the pumpkin which i actually love, and cashew is the most neutral if you want the pumpkin spice to be the only thing you taste. peanut butter is the one i would skip, it always bulldozes all the flavours lol. if you have a nut allergy opt for a seed butter like tahini or you can completely omit the almond butter, it will affect the flavour but i'm sure that is preferred over an epipen!

oat flour is the only dry ingredient here. 90g is what takes this from a wet puree situation to something you can actually roll in ur hands without it sticking to everything. note that the batter will always be slightly sticky since the main ingredient is pumpkin but you will be able to shape them and the chocolate dipping + freezer time fixes this.

if you need these to be properly gluten free, check your oat flour is certified gluten free since oats get cross contaminated with wheat really easily during processing. and if you want to make ur own, blitz rolled oats in the food processor until they are powdery before you add anything else in, it saves you washing up a blender and ensures they are blended fine enough.

a lot of you are going to ask about protein powder so... you can add it in! but it will affect the taste and it WILL make them drier because protein powder absorbs liquid like nothing else. so you have to increase the almond butter or puree and reduce the oat flour to compensate; ie if you are adding in 30g of protein powder, reduce the oat flour by at least 30g. i would start there and then taste and adjust as you go which is the beauty of all no bake treats, vanilla flavoured would be ideal here.

on the spice, one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice is my starting point but this can be adjusted to your preference as i know it will vary person to person. i use a premixed pumpkin spice seasoning but if you would like to make your own i wanted to include how to make it! the spices normally used are Ceylon cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves and ground allspice. the ratio is roughly 3:2:1:1:1 depending on how big of a batch you would like to make. i have also tested these with just cinnamon and ground ginger and they taste very close to when i use the mix so if you are feeling low effort that's an easy hack!

the dark chocolate is 70%+ for a reason, at 70% you are getting a solid amount of cocoa flavanols, the polyphenols in cocoa that have been studied for blood flow and reducing inflammation, so pairing it with the pumpkin is adding extra anti-inflammatory compounds on top of the beta carotene. flavour wise the bitterness is what stops these being sickly; pumpkin and dates are both sweet and soft, and the dark chocolate cuts straight through that. 50g is plenty for a thin shell on about 7 truffles but you can always add more if you prefer.

taste as you go: not enough pumpkin pie spice, add in some more to ur preference. batter is too dry, add in more almond butter or an extra date. if it is not sweet enough, another date can go in. this is my fave thing about no-bake desserts and they are a great entry point to making your own sweet treats for this exact reason, you literally can't fail here! on sizing, i did approx 7 truffles but roll them into whatever size you like, just know it will impact the macros per truffle too if you are tracking.

if you are deep in autumn mode, my invisible apple cake is mostly fruit held together by the thinnest layer of batter and it is sugar free. and if you liked how little effort these were, my 3 ingredient coconut truffles are the no bake recipe i reach for the most when i want something done in 25 minutes and they are also added sugar free!