Somehow or another, I seem to find myself on the email list for all sorts of newsletters. Most of them relate to food. So since the fall season is upon us, so many of my informative e-newsletters are dedicated to fall-centric dishes. With this in mind, I set out to find a delish fall dessert......and thank you Paula Deen for making my wildest fall dessert dreams come true. You've got to love a lady who always advocates for more butter! So I found her recipe for pumpkin bars and I knew she wouldn't lead me astray, so I whipped 'em up......and they are like crack. Paula calls them "bars" though and I think they are more like iced brownies, but whatever. The bar is sweet but not super sweet, so the addition of the cream cheese icing gives it that extra kick of sugar....and who doesn't love cream cheese frosting!So here we go:
Ingredients:
Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy.
The recipe was a little cryptic when it said to combine the first few ingredients until light and fluffy. WTF does that mean? I just threw the mixer on medium for a few minutes while I was doing other things, and low and behold, when I came back to check, the batter had lightened in color a bit and I took that to mean it was fluffy. See below.......
Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan.
Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.
It ends up looking golden and lovely!!! Just like fall.
To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.
To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.I was too impatient to wait until the bars had cooled completely, so my icing was a little runny. But it didn't matter.....these things are AMAZING!!! Enjoy
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