Pumpkin Bars ♥ A Simple Cake to Celebrate October

Quick and easy Pumpkin Bars (or Pumpkin Tea Cakes, as pictured), moist and filled with fall spices. The icing isn't really necessary although a little drizzle adds a sweet counterpoint that many people like. Celebrate the glory that is October!

~ first published 2007, recipe & photo updated 2011, republished 2013 ~
~more recently updated recipes~

2007 ORIGINAL POST The Daring Bakers, they're killing me. Last week, I was mining my favorite baking cookbook, the much-beloved Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and I swear, without thinking, found myself in the index checking the Ds for Daring. You see, the Daring Bakers are a group of passionate blogging bakers from across the world who each month, from their own kitchens, cream and caramelize and create the same spectacular somethings. These guys really love to bake and it shows.

Me, I love-love-love to bake too, though lean to 'simple', my own definition of spectacular – especially cakes and cookies and bars and desserts baked on a whim with pantry ingredients. Enter these extra-simple but somehow-perfect Pumpkin Bars. (1) Yes, there really is a 'vegetable' in there so the recipe does qualify for a food blog full of vegetable recipes. (2) Yes, you can really put vegetables into desserts.

As Pumpkin Bars, these stand about an inch tall, with just the right cake-iness, just the right sweetness, just the right mix of fall spices. Then douse them in a sickly sweet icing – no wait! don't do that! I sure wish I hadn't. A mere drizzle of icing would have been nice, just a bit of sweet to contrast with the spices. But all that frosting heaviness? Yuck. It got scraped off every single piece.
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