Pumpkin Bars will fill your house with the cozy tastes and smells of the holidays.
Moist tender cake-like bars flavored with pumpkin and warming spices meld with rich butter and cream cheese frosting for a bar so good, it’s hard to stop at just one!
Easy Pumpkin Bars
- These pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting are so easy to make in one bowl.
- Canned pumpkin is paired with simple pantry ingredients.
- Moist and sweet pumpkin bars are perfect for dessert, coffee breaks, or guests.
Ingredients for Pumpkin Bars
Batter Ingredients – This pumpkin bars recipe has basic pantry ingredients like all purpose flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Pumpkin – Eggs and oil along with pumpkin puree, either canned or homemade. It gives the cake its festive orange color not to mention the delicious texture and flavor!
Spice – These have the perfect touch of pumpkin spice flavor! For this recipe use either a purchased variety or go for this easy DIY pumpkin pie spice blend.
Frosting – Tangy cream cheese frosting goes so well with pumpkin bars. But go ahead and frost with whipped cream or even drizzle caramel sauce like in this pumpkin bread pudding recipe.
Extras – Try adding in some cranberries, raisins, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, or even fancy candied pecans.
How to Make Pumpkin Bars
This recipe is as easy as (pumpkin) pie! No pastry dough to mix or roll, and cleanup is a snap.
- Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
- Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients.
- Spread into a sheet cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean (as per the recipe below).
- Cool, top with frosting, and cut into bars for serving.
Storing Leftover Pumpkin Bars
- Cream cheese frosting should be refrigerated, so be sure to make room in the fridge to store leftovers. It will keep for up to a week, tightly covered.
- Freezing is also an option. Bars can be stored for up to 6 months in freezer containers.
- For food safety reasons, thaw frozen pumpkin bars in the refrigerator.
Yummy Pumpkin Treats
Easy Pumpkin Bars
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ⅓ cups granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree
- 1 cup vegetable oil
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup butter (unsalted) softened
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups powdered sugar or as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spice, and salt in a bowl.
- Add remaining ingredients and stir just until combined.
- Pour into an ungreased 10×15" baking pan and bake 25-30 minutes.
- Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting or top each serving with whipped cream.
Frosting
- Beat butter and cream cheese with a mixer 2 to 3 minutes until creamy.
- Add vanilla and 3 cups powdered sugar beating until fluffy. Continue adding powdered sugar to get desired consistency.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dessert
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Could these be made in a glass baking dish?
As long as your glass dish is oven safe, it should work. Let us know how they turn out, Kristin!
Easy recipe and tastes great!
So happy you enjoyed these pumpkin bars, Karen!
This recipe came out perfect! so moist and a great addition to my fall dessert recipes! Thank you so much!
These sound so tasty & easy, Holly. I’m wondering if I can substitute half cup of applesauce, and use only half cup of oil? Thank you. :-)
I haven’t tried these with half applesauce. While I think it will change the texture slightly I do think it would work well in this recipe. Let us know how it goes Angelina!