Pumpkin Oaty Bars

Well, I’m back properly!

This year has been a complete and total whirlwind and it is now coming to a quieter end thank goodness. We moved home in January, and then not long after we started planning our wedding in Canada followed by a big party.

This along with my regular day to day work, where I have to travel more now, and taking on a garden in the new home. It all means more time away from the kitchen and computer. This has genuinely taken up a LOT of my year and I don’t feel I have dedicated as much time to the blog as I would have liked.

The party was fantastic . You may have seen the wedding cake on social media over the past wee while. I hope you liked it as much as I did. I can’t lay claim to having made it, but I can claim to having designed it. It incorporated all elements of things Disneyboi and I love. Check that out in a future post.

One thing I do love which wasn’t on the cake though was pumpkin! I enjoy baking with it, and as I always say it’s not just for Halloween, but for the Fall. When we were in Canada last month pumpkins were everywhere. They look so lovely piled up outside shops. It must be the orange colour which I love, although you get so many varieties these days.

I had a couple of cans of pureed pumpkin languishing in the bottom of the kitchen cupboard and I saw a recipe in a magazine I had picked up on my travels. It was for a bar, square type of affair with nuts, oats and cream cheese going on.

The best way to describe it was like a pumpkin pie filling sandwiched between a crumbly cookie crust. Gorgeous!

The pumpkin is mixed with cream cheese, egg and the spices you associate with pumpkin pie. The crust is made with sugar, butter, flour and added pecans and porridge oats. You flatten three quarters of this in the bottom of a pan and bake it until golden and firm, you then add the pumpkin filling and scatter over remaining mix. This gives a crumble like topping.

When baked the pumpkin is soft but firm and the cookie part is slightly crunchy and the edges go a bit crusty which my tasters were scrambling over.

These pumpkin cream cheese bars are easy to make and too easy to scoff! Here’s my adapted recipe from ‘Fall Baking’ magazine:

print recipe

Pumpkin Oaty Bars

by Stuart Vettese November-07-2016

Bars with a cookie crust, cookie top and pumpkin cream cheese centre!

Ingredients

• 135 grams Plain Flour
• 170 grams Granulated Sugar, divided
• 100 grams Light Brown Sugar
• 170 grams cold  unsalted butter, cubed
• 80 grams porridge oats
• 65 grams pecans, chopped
• 225 grams full-fat cream cheese, room temp
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 can of pumpkin puree (about 400 grams)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 medium eggs

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan).
Grease and line a 9x13 baking pan and set aside.
In a large bowl, sift the flour, stir in 55 grams of the granulated sugar, all the brown sugar and then rub in the butter until the mix resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Stir in the porridge oats and pecan nuts.
Remove a cups worth to sprinkle on the top (about 250 grams).
Press the rest of the crumbly mix into the bottom of the prepared pan firmly then bake for 10 to 15 minutes until it becomes golden around the edges. Remove from the oven.
In the bowl of a food mixer, beat together the cream cheese, cinnamon, allspice and remaining sugar until creamy.
Beat in the pumpkin and vanilla until smooth then add the eggs one at a time, beating in between each addition.
Pour the wet mix over the warm cookie base and sprinkle the remaining dry mix evenly over the pumpkin filling.
Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until it wobbles only slight when jiggled and a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the pan.
Allow to cool then score into squares or bars and serve.
Refrigerate any that are not being consumed immediately.
Enjoy!

Details

Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 30-40 mins Total time: 1 hours 10 mins  Yield: 24 bars approx

I am entering this bar into Treat Petite, co-hosted by Kat at The Baking Explorer and this month by  me. There is no theme anymore, so 'Anything Goes'.