Easy Pumpkin Cupcake Toppers with a Surprising "Stem"

These Easy Pumpkin Cupcake Toppers with a Surprising "Stem" are so easy to make.  You can make the pumpkin with fondant or modeling chocolate and the stem is the fun addition of a fragrant whole clove.  It's perfection!

October is just flying by and it makes me so sad.  This is by far my most favorite season and I just want time to slow down a bit.  This week will be super busy again, but there's a break in my future.

We're about to take a short 4-day Fall vacation to the Ozark Mountains and Silver Dollar City.  We're super excited about the down time and getting away from the "real life" for a few days.

Plus - seeing the Ozarks in the Fall - it's going to be amazing I'm sure!  Colorful leaves, the smell of wood-burning fires, warm drinks and pumpkins everywhere.  I can.not.wait.

But before I go... let's talk about pumpkins.  Easy Pumpkin Cupcake Toppers to be exact.  And I have a fun little surprise for the stems.  Whole Cloves!!  Here's a short video and then keep scrolling for the picture picturorial below:

This is not my original idea.... I'm pretty sure the first time I saw it was when Rudy from Man Bakes Cake shared the idea a few years ago.  By the way - if you ever get a chance to meet him in person, do!  He's a gem!!

Back to the pumpkins... since seeing Rudy do them, I've seen the idea in other places too so I'm not sure where it originated.

But still - it's not a widely promoted idea as far as I can tell - so I wanted to share with  YOU, just in case you haven't seen it yet.

Here's what you'll need:

• Orange Fondant or Orange Modeling Chocolate  (I made homemade marshmallow fondant and colored it with orange gel coloring)
• Whole Cloves
• Dull knife or sculpting tool
• Veiner /Sculpting tool (see in pics below)

Alrighty... first up tear off a piece of fondant however large you want the pumpkin to be.  A large gumball seamed to be a good size for me.

I used the back side of a small paring knife to make the lines in the pumpkin.  You could also use a butter knife or a sculpting tool.

I preferred the not-so-sharp surface but probably any knife would do.

Keep rotating until you have lines all t he way around from top-to-bottom (go back up to the video if I'm not being clear).

When you're done, use a veining tool or small ball tool to make the indention on top for the stem.

Next up take a whole clove and just pop it on top with the fat end down and you're done!

I reshaped these pumpkins to make them more round, but you could also do taller ones - whatever shape you like best!

And that's it!  These little pumpkins can be used immediately!  I used them on cupcakes and on a cake - perfection:

Easy Pumpkin Cupcake Toppers with Whole Clove Stem

Here's the little Pumpkin Patch Scarecrow Cake that I also added some pumpkins: