Pumpkin Bars recipe, or We Have A Lot of Leftovers

As I mentioned in this post, I made Pumpkin Bars this weekend for our dinner with JY and Ashlee.  I knew I wanted to make a dessert for them and when I thought about all of the dessert recipes in my repertoire and which I would like to make this weekend, Pumpkin Bars immediately came to mind.

You see, when I was growing up my mom would bake us a cake of our choice for our birthday every year.  As I detailed in this post, my mom is not big on baking, so this was a very nice gesture!  While my siblings would choose confetti or chocolate cake, my dad and I always chose Pumpkin Bars for our birthdays.  I loved them so much my mom even figured out how to mail them to me my first year of college!  Even before all that, my grandma (whose recipe this is and of Grandma D's Sugar Cookie fame) used to make these for my dad when he was young and I believe he brought some back from her to college too!

They are delicious and instantly remind me of all the great birthdays I've spent with my family over the years.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups of sugar
15 ounce can of pumpkin
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Frosting:
4 ounces of cream cheese (usually half of a regular box of cream cheese), softened
3/4 stick of margarine, softened
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups of powdered sugar


Kitchen Supplies:
Handheld mixer or stand mixer
Cookie sheet (my grandma's original recipe calls it a jelly roll pan)
Sieve for sifting
Medium size bowl for dry ingredients

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.  Add ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to dry ingredients.  Next, mix eggs, vegetable oil, sugar and pumpkin well.  Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, stirring to combine.  Pour into a 12 x 18 pan (see notes above) and bake for twenty five to thirty minutes until toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean.

Allow to cool.  Combine cream cheese, margarine, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar.  Beat well until creamy and smooth.  Spread over top of cooled bars and serve.

This makes a lot of food.  On Sunday we each had two pieces and J and I have been eating some for dessert for lunch and dinner (and breakfast one day) every day this week and we still have a ton left over, hence the title of this post.

Alas, I didn't get any pictures of the finished product before we dug in, but trust me, it's great. As always, please let me know if you try the pumpkin bars and if you end up loving them as much as I do!