Pumpkin Bars with Pecans and Chocolate Chunks
Not quite a blondie, not quite a cake, but tender, chocolatey, with a little crunch from the pecans and full of warm fall flavors. These pumpkin bars are an easy, stir-together recipe, no mixer or beaters required. They can easily be done in an hour start to finish. If a picture is a thousand words, then you can see how quickly they disappeared in the photos. We had a few too many before we remembered that we hadn’t taken pictures for the blog yet! I can’t wait to make them again. Seriously.
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Right. Soooo, there were originally 16 bars, but we may or may not have eaten some before picture taking. Oops.
Photos by Daniel Marks
Pumpkin Bars Recipe:
Yield:
9-26 bars depending on how you slice them
Difficulty:
Easy
Special equipment:
8x8-inch baking pan
Ingredients
170 grams or 12 TBSP (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
125 grams (½ cup) canned pumpkin purée (I use Libby’s brand)
110 grams (½ cup packed) dark brown sugar
65 grams (⅓ cup) granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
170 grams (1 ⅓ cups) all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ginger
½ tsp kosher salt
85 grams (a heaping ½ cup) bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
75 grams (¾ cup) pecans, coarsely chopped
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Leave enough overhanging the edges to use as handles to lift the baked bars out of the pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, pumpkin purée, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg yolks and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, salt and most of the chocolate and pecans leaving some to decorate the top. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smooth the top and sprinkle with the reserved chopped chocolate and pecans.
Bake until the top looks set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 20-25 minutes. Set the pan on a rack and let the bars cool in the pan.
Using the parchment as handles, lift the bars out of the pan and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 9 large or 16 small bars. Store at room temperature wrapped tightly in foil for 5 days, or freeze for longer storage if they don’t all disappear right away.
Photo by Daniel Marks
Adapted from: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021515-pumpkin-blondies-with-chocolate-and-pecans
