Say Hello to October with Pumpkin Bars
October rolls around and all we want to eat is pumpkin! Yesterday being October 1st provided the perfect excuse to make our first pumpkin dessert of the season: Sue’s Pumpkin Bars. Our mom has been baking this pumpkin bar recipe for years which was originally given to her by our dear family friend Sue Teague. Sue, we (and Joe!) cannot thank you enough for sharing these. Each bite is not only delicious but just screams “fall is here”.
We like to garnish these pumpkin bars with candy corn to make them extra festive. And really any excuse to have a bag of candy corn lying around the house is okay with me. Does anyone else eat candy candy corn by carefully biting off each layer of color – first white, then orange, and yellow last? Just me? Well, okay then… Back to the recipe for pumpkin bars.
SUE’S PUMPKIN BARS
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1-16 oz can packed pumpkin
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups Bisquick
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- Cream cheese frosting: 3 oz cream cheese (softened), 1/3 cup butter (softened), 1 Tbsp milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 cups powdered sugar
DIRECTIONS
- Heat oven to 350 degrees.
- With an electric mixer, beat together sugar, oil, pumpkin, and eggs in a large bowl on medium speed for 1 minute. Stir in Bisquick and cinnamon (I recommend using a whisk and stirring until you get rid of all the lumps).
- Pour pumpkin batter into a greased and floured jelly roll pan. (Original recipe calls for using a 15.5 x 10.5 jelly roll pan. I didn’t have a jelly roll pan this size, so I used my quarter sheet pan and left out some of the batter filling until about 1/2 to 3/4 inches from the top. My mom always uses a true half-sheet pan (18 x-13 inches) to make these pumpkin bars, they just come out a little thinner).
- Bake until wooden pick, inserted into the center of the pan, comes out clean. About 23-28 minutes; let cool.
- For the cream cheese frosting, beat all ingredients together except powdered sugar. Once thoroughly combined and creamy, add sugar and beat until smooth and of desired consistency. Add more milk if too thick.
- Frost bars with cream cheese frosting.
- If desired, garnish with candy corn.
- Store in refrigerator or freezer.
Here are some other pumpkin desserts that we are drooling over for October: Pumpkin Angel Food Cake; Chocolate Peanut Butter Pumpkin Blossoms; Pumpkin Creme Brulee; Pumpkin Snickerdoodles; Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies; and Baked Pumpkin Pudding. Yum!
Do you have a favorite pumpkin dessert recipe that you would like to share with us? Please do! Or if you try Sue’s Pumpkin Bars this weekend to kick off October, please take a picture and tag us on Instagram at @letswineaboutitsister. We would love to see what you are baking!
