Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing

How good do these look?!? I'm so proud!

Ok, so yesterday, I wrote about how in the short time that I've been writing this blog, my cooking style has become pretty apparent. Well, as you can tell, I am not a baker! At all. However, I was assigned to the dessert group for a picnic that I am going to tomorrow. Every autumn, my professors (a married couple) have a picnic at their house for all of the first and second year master's students, ph.d students, and other faculty members from my program. I took this as an opportunity to branch out and try something new. And it turned out great!

These pumpkin bars came from a Paula Deen recipe that I got off of the Food Network website. When I read the title, I figured they would be more brownie-like, but the whole thing actually looks more like a cake.


Even though I was expecting something different, I was happy with the result. I really did go all out, I even bought a $7 hand-held mixer from Target :) I always look for a great excuse to expand my collection of kitchen gadgets. But now that I know I can make a killer batch of cream cheese icing, I know I'll get a lot of use out of that little mixer.

Pumpkin Bars - Adapted from Paula Deen's recipe on the Food Network website

4 eggs
1 2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 15-oz. can pumpkin
2 cups sifted, all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg (not in the original recipe, I added this)

Preheat over to 350. Mix eggs, oil, sugar, and pumpkin at a medium speed until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, baing soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, mixing at a low speed until smooth. Pour into a 13x9 inch greased baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing

Mix together 1 8-oz. package of room temperature cream cheese with one stick of unsalted, room temperature butter. Add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg (cinnamon and nutmeg weren't in the original recipe, but I wanted to add them). Slowly mix in 2 cups of confectioners' sugar until combined. Spread this on the cooled pumpkin bars.

This recipe was AMAZING, and I hope you all get a chance to try it. Baking today made my whole entire apartment smell like autumn, it was great.



Enjoy :)