Nov 13 2010
Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing
A few years back, my mom and I were home alone the day after Thanksgiving. We’re not the Black Friday shopping type, so we settled in for a morning of watching cooking shows while still in our pajamas.
It was heaven.
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It was also our introduction to Paula Deen. I’d heard of her at that point, but I’d never watched the show. The episode airing featured Thanksgiving leftovers, including a recipe on what to do with leftover canned pumpkin. She used a recipe submitted by a viewer and made pumpkin bars.
My mom and I looked at each other…and she told me that she had canned pumpkin and cream cheese. We were hooked. After all, once or twice a year my mom makes the best zucchini cake around, with a decadent cream cheese icing; pumpkin bars seemed like the perfect cool-weather variation.
The following recipe came about when I misread directions a couple of years ago, and missed a paragraph when making the bars. As a result, I changed the order of the steps in the recipe. I was happy with the outcome, however, as the original recipe produced a dense bar that seemed to take forever to fully bake. My new accidental method, on the other hand, produced a lighter bar that I paired with a fluffier cream cheese icing.
This is not a fancy recipe, but it’s one everyone seems to enjoy. It’s a dessert you can make with your kids, even the little ones – just give them a spoon and let them stir. And because it’s in the form of bars, it travels well.
Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing
for the bars:
4 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
15 ounces pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup canola oil
2 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon salt
for the icing:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar*
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon sea salt
for the bars:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray 13×9 inch pan with cooking spray.
In medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.
In a large bowl, whisk the sugars and eggs until mixed. Whisk in the oil and pumpkin puree. Stir in the vanilla.
Sprinkle the flour mixture over the pumpkin; stir with a spatula until no traces of flour remain.
Spread batter into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.
for the icing:
Using the paddle attachment, mix cream cheese and butter on medium-low until smooth. Reduce speed to low, add powdered sugar ½ cup at a time, scraping the bowl as necessary. Add vanilla and salt, mix on low to combine. Spread frosting over cooled bars and cut.
Store covered in the refrigerator.
*For this icing recipe, I sifted the confectioners’ sugar before I measured out 2 1/2 cups.
Sounds heavenly.
Thanks, Michelle.
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[…] stashed away in the pantry from last year. Hey, I learned my lesson last year when I wanted to make pumpkin bars, only to find no grocery store around had any canned pumpkin! There was a pumpkin shortage, which […]