When you close your eyes and think of autumn, you typically think of leaves changing, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and cold. You may also venture to think about cranberries, apples, and, of course, pumpkins.

Pumpkins are personally one of my favorite parts of fall. The varying sizes, the cool decorations, and the delicious things you can make with them. In fact, here are two of my favorite pumpkin recipes! But, before I give them to you, I want to explain their significance.

The first recipe is something that I’ve been making with my dad since I was a little girl. Every night before Thanksgiving, we’d be in the kitchen dutifully preparing the delicious dessert for the next day’s feast.

The next recipe was something my mom found for me on the internet sometime around Halloween, which is my absolute favorite holiday. We hurried around the house to find the ingredients and, while watching "Hocus Pocus" and "Halloweentown," we put everything together and even decorated them with Cool Whip to look like little ghosties.

I’ve made some wonderful memories with these recipes, and every year that I continue to make them is another set of warm, mushy feelings I have towards the autumn season. So, without further ado, here are my two absolute favorite pumpkin recipes to fulfill your pumpkin-y needs this fall!

Pumpkin Pie Mousse

1 pkg vanilla pudding (3.4 oz)

¾ cup of milk

½ can pumpkin puree

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

7 cups Cool Whip

1 Graham Cracker pie crust

For this recipe, start by making the pudding using ¾ cup of milk. Once the pudding is nice and smooth, add in the pumpkin and spices and mix well. Finally, add the Cool Whip in to the mix gradually and stir well. Once everything has been combined, you can toss it all in the pie crust!

Let it sit in the fridge overnight and then- voila! The Perfect Pumpkin Pie Mousse!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1 can of pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

No, I promise I did not miss any ingredient, that’s literally it! Just combine a box of yellow cake mix (Or your favorite cake! If you’re looking for a taste more similar to pumpkin bread then use spice cake!) and a regular can of pumpkin puree, stir it all together, and fill the cupcake tins about ¾ the way full.

Put them in the oven for about 10 minutes or until you can poke the cakes with a toothpick and it comes out clean, then there you have it! Your own little pumpkin cupcakes!

I hope that you’ve thoroughly enjoyed these recipes and I hope that you have as much of a fun time making them as I have! If you have any other fun pumpkin recipes that you love, you can drop them off in the comment section below, email me at anlst227@mail.rmu.edu, or message me on twitter @MarvelGeekChic! I’ll pick the ones I like best and put a little feature for them in my next article!

Until next time, ciao!