This recipe was originally posted on Little Bites of Beauty.

If you are looking for an easy and healthy little desserts for “Trick or Treat” night, these Paleo Halloween Mandarin Cups are the perfect recipe for you!

They combine the traditional Jack O’ Lantern Oranges with the delicious and spooky Dirt Cups, all while looking like tiny, little carved pumpkins!

These paleo Halloween treats are super healthy and free from gluten, dairy, nuts and refined sugar, making them a great option for a kid party (you never know what kids might be allergic to) or simply for us adults, to enjoy something that’s actually nourishing on the night in which junk food makes its triumph!

How make this recipe Easier & Faster:

To drastically reduce the prep time of these paleo Halloween Mandarin Cups, you can simply draw the Jack ‘O Lanterns faces with a sharpie on the mandarin peel and avoid carving it and filling the cut outs with chocolate. This will definitely make the preparation process a lot quicker.

Alternatively, you can still carve out the orange part of the mandarin peel (see instructions in the recipe card below) and avoid filling them with melted chocolate. Your Halloween Mandarin Cups will have white cutouts instead of dark ones, but they’ll be as cute!

Paleo Halloween Mandarin Cups

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Course Desserts

Servings 12

Ingredients

  

• 12 tangerines
• 1 oz 90% Dark Chocolate

For the Dirt Filling

• 1 1/2 frozen bananas
• 1/3 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1 tbsp cacao powder
• 1 tbsp carob powder
• 1/4 cup tigernut flour
• 1 tangerine pulp

For the Toppings

• 2 tbsp cacao nibs
• 1 oz 90% Dark Chocolate
• 1/2 tbsp date syrup
• 2 tbsp freeze dried raspberries
• 2 tbsp Shredded coconut*

Instructions

 

• With a sharpie, draw out Jack ‘o Lanterns’ eyes, nose and mouth over the side of your mandarins. This sketch will help you be more precise when you make incisions in the mandarin skin.
• With a cutter or a sharp knife, cut along the lines you traced with your sharpie, making sure you don’t cut it all the way through.
• Remove the orange layer of the skin (making sure the white, internal part of the skin is still intact).
• Melt the chocolate and use it to fill the incisions you made on the mandarin skin. You can do so by helping yourself with a small kitchen brush or with a small spoon and a toothpick, just like I did.
• Slice the top off the mandarins, then run a sharp knife or cutter around its interior and cut out a big cone of mandarin pulp which you’ll reserve for the dirt filling or for a fruit salad. Do not remove all of the pulp, but make sure you leave some attached to the skin so it will add a juicy taste to your dirt filling.
• Place your Halloween mandarin cups in the refrigerator and start preparing the filling.
• Combine all ingredients for the Dirt filling in a Vitamix and blend until you have smooth and creamy mousse.
• Transfer the dirt mousse in a pastry bag (or in a Ziploc bag in which you cut off a small piece of the corner) and squeeze out the mousse in the mandarin cups.
• In a small pan, melt the dark chocolate, take it off the stove and mix date syrup and cacao nibs, mixing well until they are all coated with the chocolate-date syrup mixture.
• Garnish your Halloween Mandarin Dirt Cups with some glazed cacao nibs, some shaved coconut and crushed freeze dried raspberries.
• Add in a fun paper straw (I cut mine in 3 pieces) and serve!