With clouds and rain returning this afternoon and Thanksgiving just around the corner, today seemed like a great day to bake an easy pumpkin treat. These are a soft cake-like bar cookie. What I love about cake-like cookies is they often have less sugar and butter. This recipe uses just 1/4 cup of butter and 2/3 cup of sugar. As a bonus, they have one whole cup of pumpkin puree, which means we all get a little bit more nutrition in our cookie. If the recipe below looks remotely familiar, that's because I modified the applesauce-raisin bar cookies I opted about last month to use pumpkin puree and chocolate chips (plus a wee bit more spice). Enjoy!
Pumpkin Spice-Chocolate Chip Bars
¼ cup butter or margarine, softened
⅔ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup pumpkin puree (use slightly less by 1 tablespoon if using thick or canned pumpkin)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ to 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or any combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg to equal the amount)
¾ cup chocolate chips (I use mini chips, but regular chocolate chips or chocolate chunks would also be good)
confectioners' sugar, about 1 tablespoon for dusting after baking
Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a 9X13 inch baking pan. (I use a Pyrex one.)
In a medium bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg, then pumpkin puree. Stir in salt, spices, and baking soda. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.
Spread in the prepared baking pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, until done in the center and edges are golden.
Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Dust with the confectioners' sugar and cut into 24 squares.
(My husband 's comment,"these aren't going to last long." I think they're a hit.)
Home-cooked pumpkin puree and recipes that assume you're using canned pumpkin
This was a question from Kris in the comments the other day. I realize that many folks don't have time to follow the comments and then follow-up on answers to questions there. So, I thought I'd post about how to handle the often times, more watery consistency of home-cooked pumpkin compared to canned in baking recipes.
You have a couple of choices in how to compensate for the less thick home-cooked puree.
1) Dump your puree into a mesh strainer set over a bowl and leave it to strain in the fridge overnight.
2) Cook the puree down in a saucepan, stirring frequently, until of comparable thickness to canned pumpkin.
3) Bake your puree in a metal baking pan in a 300 degree oven for about 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes, bringing puree from the sides into the center and vice versa.
4) Adjust the liquids or dry ingredients when baking.
For recipes that include other liquids (such as pie, cakes, muffins), reduce the other liquid by 1 to 2 tablespoons, amount depending on how much liquid the recipe calls for. So, for pie I reduce the milk/cream by 2 tablespoons. With muffins, I often reduce by about 1 tablespoon. With pancakes, I reduce the liquid judging by the thickness of the batter. I can eyeball how thick a pancake batter needs to be.
With recipes that don't include other liquids, such as drop cookies, I add 1 extra tablespoon of flour to the cookie dough.
Decreasing the liquid or increasing the flour seems to work well for me, although I do strain off excess liquid after pureeing just before packing in freezer containers.
Those do sound delicious. And, of course, everything is better with chocolate chips. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteThat's the way my family feels, too. A little chocolate goes a long way in the taste department.
I never would have thought to bake the pumpkin puree. Thanks for answering my question!
ReplyDeleteHi Kris,
DeleteI've baked the puree before and had it work well. The time needed will vary with how watery the pumpkin is to start. Just remember to stir it from time to time, moving the outer portions to the center and the center to the outer areas of the pan, like with homemade granola.
I had terrible luck with carving pumpkins to use in meals and baked goods. Not tasty at all. I stick with butternut squash. Your bars look yummy. I just made plain pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. I'm freezing those for Thanksgiving when we travel.
ReplyDeleteAlice
Hi Alice,
DeleteYour pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting sound absolutely delicious! Enjoy your time with your grand baby!
I usually just bake pumpkin chunks directly in the oven instead of boiling/steaming them on the stove. I think it makes the pumpkin less watery this way.
ReplyDeleteHi Tina,
DeleteI think you're right about the pumpkin being less watery if baked in the oven. I've baked pumpkin halves, turned flesh side up. While there's still some excess liquid, it's not as much as simmering in a pot. I do it in a pot to soften the skin, and then puree the skin with the pumpkin flesh.
That makes sense. I never considered using the pumpkin skin.
Delete