Andrea’s answer to, “You’re gonna make pumpkin bars for Thanksgiving right?”

Of course I am!  Don’t I every single year?

I can’t find the actual page that I ripped out of the Woman’s World Magazine with the recipe on it, so I don’t know the actual year I found this recipe.  I have googled it many times but it never seems to pop up on the internet anywhere.  I had luckily made an extra copy when I made a copy for a friend a few years back as well as typing it up for my personal recipe binder.

This recipe is requested often by friends and family.   When I’d get together with my girlfriends they’d start requesting these bars as soon as the fall season rolled around.   I did see Paula Deen make these bars awhile back on her show on Paula’s Home Cooking, there was only a slight variation in some measurements but the ingredients were all the same.

 

Pumpkin Bars

 

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 can (16 oz) pumpkin pie filling

1  2/3 cups sugar

1 cup oil, preferably canola

4 eggs

Frosting

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 package 3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and 15″x10″ jelly roll pan.  Combine first 5 ingredients.  In bowl with mixer at low-speed beat pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs until combined.  Beat in flour mixture until just combined.  Spread in pan.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.  Cool completely in pan 45 minutes.

Frosting:

In bowl with mixer at medium speed beat butter, cream cheese and vanilla until combined.  Beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth.  Spread over cake; cut into bars.

 

** Lately I have been cheating when it comes to the frosting.  I started using Duncan Hines Creamy Home-style Cream Cheese Frosting.  This stuff is gooooood!  It really tastes homemade.  When no one complained it sorta just became a “habit” to use this shortcut.

 

 

Here’s Paula’s if you want to check hers out.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-bars-recipe/index.html