this recipe is similar to one I got out of a better homes and garden cook book except the seasoning. there should only be 2 tsp of baking soda and powder. Not tbsp. I also cheated and used a can of cream cheese frosting and It was great. The spices really added something to this receipe.
I love these bars. I decided to use 1 c. white sugar and 1 c. brown sugar instead of the 2 c. white sugar in the recipe. It turned out great. I like the depth of flavor the brown sugar added to it. Thank you Amy.
This recipe is tasty and my 5 year old liked to help with the mixing. But it has a slightly chemical-like taste. I think it is from the large amounts of baking powder and baking soda the recipe calls for. I am going to try to use less next time and see how they turn out. Also the bars are really very much more like cake. They were hard to pick up and eat with your hands when cut in squares. The frosting is really yummy too but needed more milk. Overall I would make them again with a few adjustments. Everyone in my family liked them.
I found this exact same recipe but it used teaspoons of baking powder and soda instead of tablespoons - wondering if the tablesppons are a typo?
The bars tasted great. I read the previous reviews and changed the baking powder and baking soda amounts to teaspoons instead of tablespoons. I baked the bars in a sheet cake pan and they came out very moist. Since I was out of vanilla I added some orange extract to the icing recipe. The orange flavoring was the perfect touch!
Fantastic! Few changes: Used 1 c brown sugar and 1 c white. Used 1/2 c veg oil and 1/2 c evaporated milk. 1 1/2 tspn cinnamon 1 tspn nutmeg and 1 tspn ginger. Also teaspoons on the baking soda and powder as well. I also made a gram cracker crust for the bottom just to add a little something special. They were so fluffy and moist! Rave reviews from friends and family! Definitely a keeper.
EVERYONE loves these bars they've made me famous. People always ask me to make these or ask for the recipe on a regular basis. Even people that don't usually like pumpkin desserts love these bars. I do make quite a few changes though: 1) teaspoons of baking powder/soda not Tablespoons as others have mentioned 2) I almost halve the sugar and no one notices. Plus I usually go 50/50 on white and brown 3) I substitute a cup of applesauce (no sugar added) for the oil 4) I like more cream cheese in my frosting so I usually do about 6oz cream cheese 6Tbsp butter and powdered sugar to taste which is probably 1.5 to 2 cups My changes make it a little more dense of a cake but no one seems to notice and they are always a hit!
The taste of Baking Powder & Soda was over the top. Terrible. There is a much better recipe with only a teaspoon of it--where this recipe calls for a tabelspoon.
Taking cues from people above --thanks!:) -- I swapped out the cinnamon for an extra 1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice substituted a 1/2 c white sugar and 1/2 (or maybe 1 I forget) cup brown sugar for the 2 cups white sugar used 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda (rather than Tablespoons) and instead of 1 cup oil used 1/2 c oil with 1/2 c cinnamon applesauce. For frosting used 6 oz or so cream cheese mixed with enough powdered sugar to sweeten it up a bit and then spread thin layer over top. Got great reviews from people at the party-- including that it was nice they weren't overly sweet. Baking them there was the perfect touch for the harvest party-- people kept coming to the kitchen to find out what the aroma was and were excited to eat them still warm.:)
