Ingredients You’ll Need:
Pumpkin – you will need pumpkin puree – not pumpkin pie filling.
Eggs – the eggs will bind all the ingredients together.
Sugar – granulated sugar.
Oil – we used vegetable oil.
Vanilla Extract– this adds a nice flavor to the bars.
Spices – cinnamon, ground ginger and ground cloves. If you don’t have ginger and cloves, you can add a teaspoon of homemade pumpkin pie spice.
Flour – all-purpose flour.
Salt – just a pinch.
Baking Powder & Baking Soda
Cream Cheese Frosting – feel free to top these with our easy Homemade Whipped Cream instead.
How To Make Pumpkin Pie Bars
Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of a 9*9 inch and spray with cooking spray. Set aside while you make the batter.
In a mixing bowl, mix together the pumpkin, eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, ground ginger, and cloves,
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add half of the flour mixture and mix well. Once it is mixed, add the remainder of the flour mixture. Scrape down the bowl and mix on high for a few more seconds.
Pour the pumpkin mixture into the pan you prepared and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. A toothpick with come out clean when inserted once the cake is done. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
As the bars are cooling, you can mix together the ingredients for the frosting. Make sure the bars have cooled completely before you put spread on the cream cheese frosting. Otherwise, it will melt and just won’t look or taste as good!
How To Store:
If you make these pumpkin bars without the frosting, you could store it at room temperature but since this recipe does have the cream cheese frosting, you will want to make sure to keep them in the refrigerator. This will keep the frosting from spoiling too soon. Make sure to have the bars wrapped well.
Can You Freeze Pumpkin Bars?
You can certainly freeze these pumpkin bars to help make them last longer or so you can have them on hand all the time. You can freeze the whole pan or you can freeze them cut apart into individual bars. Use whatever method works best for you.
Since I want to be able to pull out individual ones at a time, I like to cut them apart to freeze individually. I don’t want to have to worry about losing the frosting in the process, so I like to freeze these bars first on a baking sheet for about 1 hour. This lets them hard enough that I can wrap them individually and pop them into a freezer bag to grab one at a time later.
This protects the bars twice as well and it lets me take out what I need at the time. Be sure to take the plastic wrap off when you are ready to thaw the pumpkin bars.
