Pumpkin Bars were not the reason I drove up to Cedarburg, Wisconsin in the last week of September. I went for the harvest festival, for the accordion under the tent and the bratwurst smoke sitting low over the main street all afternoon.
The booth was a church group. Folding tables, a hand-lettered sign taped to the side of a cooler, three foil pans going fast. Sold out by two.
I got the last two squares because Marlene, who was running it, took pity on someone who had clearly been circling her table for twenty minutes. Her daughter was stacking empty pans into the back of a station wagon behind her. Marlene sat down on a folding chair next to me with a paper plate on her knee and talked me through the whole thing while the crowd moved past us toward the music.
Marlene’s Folding Chair in Cedarburg
The first thing she said was the pan. Fifteen by ten by one, the thin sheet with the low lip, and ungreased. One pan cuts into twenty four squares, which she said is the entire point of the recipe and not a suggestion.
She is right, and it is not a small detail. Bars like this exist because a single sheet feeds a church supper or a county fair booth without anyone having to slice a pie into wedges over a paper tablecloth.
She was firm about two other things. Oil in the batter, never butter. And plain canned pumpkin puree, never canned pie filling, which already has sugar and spice and water in it and throws the balance off completely. She said she has seen people do it and then wonder why the pan came out wet in the middle.
What Pumpkin Bars Actually Are
American pumpkin baking goes back further than most people expect. Amelia Simmons printed the first American pumpkin pie recipes in her 1796 book, and spiced pumpkin preparations were turning up across American cookbooks within a couple of years of that.
The bar itself came much later, when sheet pan dessert baking took hold in mid century home kitchens. Cooks took a spiced pumpkin cake batter, baked it thin so it would travel, and covered it in cream cheese frosting, borrowing that pairing straight off the carrot cake everyone was making in the same years. It spread through church cookbooks, farm kitchens and potluck tables and mostly stayed there.
It is worth knowing what these are not. They are not pumpkin pie bars, which are essentially crustless mini pies with a custardy set. And they are not pumpkin cake poured into a bigger pan. There is roughly half the baking powder here, plus less oil, egg and sugar, and that is what gives you a dense, slightly chewy bar instead of an airy crumb.
What I Used
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- Two thirds cup packed light brown sugar
- Three quarters cup vegetable or canola oil
- One 15 oz can pumpkin puree, the plain kind
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 tsp salt
- 8 oz full fat cream cheese, softened
- Half a cup of butter, softened
- 2 tsp vanilla for the frosting
- 4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
I buy the pumpkin three or four cans at a time at the little market on Third, because it disappears in October and I have been caught out before. The jelly roll pan came from a restaurant supply place downtown and cost about nine dollars. It is warped in one corner now and I still use it.
Baking Pumpkin Bars in My Own Kitchen
I made them the first genuinely cool morning we got this year, window open, coffee going, nobody else awake. Dry bowl first. Flour, both leaveners, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice whisked until the colour is even and there are no pale patches left.
Eggs and both sugars get about a minute of whisking on their own, until the mixture lightens and loosens and stops looking grainy. Then the oil, the pumpkin and the vanilla go in and you keep whisking until not one orange streak is left anywhere. It will look thin, closer to soup than to cake batter. That is correct.
The flour goes in by hand with a rubber spatula, and this is exactly where I ruined my first batch. I used the hand mixer because it was already sitting on the counter, and the batter took on air that rose beautifully in the oven and then collapsed as it cooled. The centre sank like a saucer. Stir until the last of the flour disappears and then stop.
The batter barely covers the pan. Push it into the corners with an offset spatula and let it be.
Mine is bent slightly at the tip from a drawer accident years ago and it is still the tool I reach for. Twenty five to thirty minutes at 350 F. Somewhere around minute twenty two the whole kitchen smells like that booth in Cedarburg, which is a slightly unfair thing for a kitchen to do to a person. Press the surface lightly and it should spring back.
Then it has to cool completely, an hour at minimum. I always give it the full hour. Except once, when I did not, and I watched the cream cheese frosting slide off the warm edges in a thin white river.
The frosting is cream cheese, butter and vanilla beaten until there is not a lump left, maybe two minutes, then the powdered sugar a cup at a time on low so it does not go everywhere. Spread it all the way to the edges, refrigerate uncovered about an hour until it sets firm, and cut with a clean knife, wiping the blade between cuts.
Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting are best cut cold and eaten cold, in my opinion. Room temperature is fine. Cold from the fridge, standing at the counter before anyone else is up, is better.
Swaps I Have Tried and One I Regret
Pecans are the common Southern move, a cup of them chopped and folded through the batter before it goes in the pan. I like it. I also do not always bother.
Homemade puree works if you blot it properly. Spread it on paper towels and press until it stops soaking through, because it carries far more water than canned and the bars go soggy in the middle otherwise. I almost always just open a can and skip the argument.
Butter in the batter is the swap I regret. It creams air in and you get a pumpkin sheet cake, which is a perfectly nice thing to eat, just not this thing. The oil is what keeps the crumb moist for days.
They hold five days covered in the fridge and honestly they are better on day two, which surprised me. Marlene said the same thing on that folding chair and I quietly doubted her at the time.
No accordion in my kitchen and no bratwurst smoke, obviously. I still cut the first square standing up and ate it over the sink, and the whole afternoon came back anyway.
Pumpkin Bars
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Heat the oven to 350 F and set a rack in the center. Leave the 15x10x1 inch jelly roll pan ungreased.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt until evenly combined. Set aside.
- In a second large bowl, whisk the eggs, granulated sugar and brown sugar until the mixture lightens slightly, about 1 minute. Whisk in the oil, pumpkin puree and vanilla until completely smooth with no streaks of pumpkin.
- Add the dry mixture to the wet and stir with a rubber spatula just until the last of the flour disappears. Do not use a mixer here and do not beat. Overmixing whips in air that expands and collapses, sinking the center.
- Pour the batter into the ungreased pan. It will look thin. Spread it into the corners with an offset spatula and level the top.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the surface springs back when pressed lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with no wet batter.
- Set the pan on a wire rack and cool completely, at least 1 hour. Frosting a warm slab will melt it straight off the edges.
- Beat the softened cream cheese, butter and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium until fluffy and no lumps remain, about 2 minutes.
- Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time on low speed, then beat on medium until smooth and spreadable, about 1 minute more.
- Spread the frosting evenly over the cooled slab with an offset spatula, working all the way to the edges.
- Refrigerate uncovered about 1 hour, until the frosting sets firm. Cut into 24 squares with a clean knife, wiping the blade between cuts. Serve chilled or at room temperature.