Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

How to make Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting – Overview

Making homemade pumpkin bars from scratch is easy peasy! At the bottom of this post, you'll find the complete instructions and ingredient amounts, but before we get started, here's a little overview of how to make them. 😋

You'll begin by combining the wet ingredients – cream together the butter with the sugar, then beat in the eggs and mix in the pure pumpkin puree.

Next, in a separate bowl, using a whisk, combine the dry ingredients – pumpkin spice, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients, then scrape the batter into a greased (and parchment-lined) 9″x13″ metal baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.

While your pumpkin bars are cooling, mix up a delicious cream cheese frosting in your electric mixer using softened butter, icing sugar, softened cream cheese (not the light kind!) and a little vanilla. Spread the prepared cream cheese frosting evenly over the pumpkin bars.

Chill in the fridge for a few hours, then using a sharp knife, cut the pumpkin bars into 18 pieces and serve!

What's the difference between Pumpkin Bars and Pumpkin Cake?

Although pumpkin bars and pumpkin cake are very similar in their ingredients, such as pumpkin spice, pureed pumpkin and cream cheese frosting, one difference is that pumpkin bars have a more dense body.

Pumpkin cake is typically fluffy and has more of that typical “bready” texture most cakes tend to have. Pumpkin bars have a richer, more dense texture similar to pumpkin pie but leaning more towards the cakey side… so somewhere in a super yummy in between!

Homemade pumpkin puree vs store bought:
Which is best for my pumpkin bars?

You can use either homemade pumpkin puree or the store-bought canned kind (like Libby's) for this recipe. Both will work; however, I'd highly recommend using store-bought as the pumpkin flavour will be richer and more pronounced.

If you do choose to use homemade pumpkin puree for this recipe, you'll need to make sure it's been drained of most of its liquid, concentrated and thick enough to pack enough flavour to make the pumpkin bars their yummiest.

I find that sometimes when using homemade puree, the pumpkin flavour we're looking for just isn't as intense as the canned version… and that's ok! The store-bought kind is super concentrated and contains less water, so that's why it works so well!

A few possible recipe variations:

Sprinkles: Depending on the occasion, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc., you could top your pumpkin bars with some appropriately themed sprinkles! For Halloween, you could try orange, black sprinkles or even cute little bat shapes!

Different Frosting: For this recipe, I decided to use the traditional and classic plain cream cheese frosting to top these pumpkin bars, and it works very well! If, however, you'd like to experiment with a different frosting flavour, definitely give it a try!

I'm working on a few different frosting recipes that I know will complement the flavour of these pumpkin bars very well – maple cream cheese frosting, for example! Once I've perfected it, I'll link to it here! 😋

Nuts: You could try adding some nuts to the batter to give the pumpkin bars! Walnuts, pecans and pralines would work very well! You could also try sprinkling chopped nuts on top of the cream cheese frosting for garnish and for yumminess!

Chocolate chips: Sometimes, I like to throw a handful of mini chocolate chips into the batter! Sooooo yummy!

More pumpkin recipes you'll enjoy:

• Pumpkin Cheesecake with Butterscotch Drizzle
• Instant Pumpkin Spice Latte Mix
• Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream
• Pumpkin Cheesecake Jack-O-Lanterns – A Perfect Halloween Dessert!