Paula Deen's Pumpkin Bars

Paula Deen's super moist Pumpkin Bar's with Cream Cheese Frosting!

On with my pumpkin recipes.

I've made them savory and I've made them sweet but by far this was the sweetest. Did you see Top Chef on Wednesday night when Padma used her napkin to spit out the super sweet lemon meringue martini? Well these aren't that sweet. Close, but no spitting was going on here. Just remember I warned you!

Before the recipe I wanted to do a couple of shout outs to some very kind people who have sent me a couple of things to try out...

Carr's cracker people contacted me a couple of weeks ago with some recipes that they thought I might be interested in (am and will show them later). They also asked me if they could send me some Carr's samples. Well seeing that they are my go to entertaining cracker I jumped at the chance to get some free. I thought maybe they would send me a box of crackers and that would be it. I was wrong...very wrong. The wonderful people at Carr's sent me an elegantly wrapped up basket with three boxes of crackers!!! Rosemary Crackers, Their classic Table Water Crackers w/ cracked black pepper and their Whole Wheat Crackers!!! Thanks Carr's

I was also contacted by the YouBar people. A few months back I was sent a couple of samples of their YouBars. Great idea but I am way too lazy to do it. You choose all of your ingredients in your bar and they send it to you labeled for you personally and all. Last week they contacted me and asked me if they could send me samples from their newest product line YouShake. Seeing as T. has a protein smoothie every morning I gladly accepted. So far he has only tried one but he did say that it was very, very good. It was a chocolate whey protein drink with banana. Sounded good to me. Thanks YouBar!!!

Pumpkin Bars (Food Network-Paula Deen)

Ingredients:

Bars:

• 4 eggs
  
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 15-ounce can pumpkin
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I changed this to 1 tsp cinnamon)
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves (I added)
  
• 1/4 tsp ginger (I added)
  
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg (I added)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:

• 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• I also added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com