pumpkin-cream cheese cinnamon rolls

It's amazing the amount of emails I receive, thanking me for the Trader Joe creations. To be honest, I wasn't sure if they might go over well, but glad to hear most of you enjoy them. I know most of them are semi-homemade, but in this tough economy saving money when making meals is a top priority of mine; you can imagine the amount of money I spend on food for creating recipes. Thank goodness Trader Joe's products are so versatile, user-friendly, what else (besides cheap?). Oh you know where I'm going with this......

I do get a lot of inspiration when Trader Joe's has the product sampling. Does yours do sampling? I imagine they all do. Last time I was at Trader Joe's, four days ago, they had samples of the rice balls with marinara, they were good. But what really caught my attention was the girl behind the counter serving the samples was quieting working on these cake ball like things. So being the chatty person that I am I asked her what she was making. She took the TJ's pumpkin bread mix, made them into cake balls with some agave, let them chill/firm up in the fridge and then was dipping them in white chocolate. She had made a small batch for the employees to try before launching onto them to the public. Interesting for sure. Pumpkin bread cake balls; might give that a try....would you?

Remember the peanut butter cream cheese cinnamon rolls topped with bacon that I did a while back? Well that is where I got the inspiration for these pumpkin ones. The instant cinnamon rolls from trader Joe's are so good, so easy and always beg to be kicked up somehow.

pumpkin-cream cheese cinnamon rolls
print recipe

1 pack of Trader Joe’s Cinnamon Rolls (in the can)
2-3 TB plain pumpkin puree
4-5 ounces of cream cheese, room temp
A few dashes of pumpkin pie spice
A few dashes of cinnamon
¼ cup of crushed pecans or walnuts, optional

Note: I thought I was going to need a bit of confectioners' sugar, but I did not. The icing pack that came with the cinnamon rolls was plenty sweet.

Bake cinnamon rolls according to package directions.

Take the icing pack that came with the cinnamon rolls and place in a bowl along with the pumpkin puree, cream cheese, pumpkin pie spice, and cinnamon. Stir until well mixed. Set aside.
When rolls are done baking, immediately put the pumpkin-cream cheese mix over the rolls. Top with extra spices if desired and crushed nuts.
Serve immediately.
(they don’t keep well for the next day)