Like my good friend mav of port2port, I have been baking like crazy lately. In the past week alone, I made brownies, apple cake and tried a new recipe…Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars.
I am prone to great nostalgia and often love eating certain foods at traditional times. For our family, it is always roast beef and yorkshire pudding on Christmas Day. I love a delicious, gooey S’more on the 4th of July made over a campfire on the beach. Candy hearts at Valentine’s Day, candy corn at Halloween and pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. For almost all of these holiday treats, I am happy eating them just once a year. However, I love the pumpkin pie flavors… nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves… and want more of them more of the time!
I tried pumpkin cookies and they weren’t very good. I meant to make pumpkin soup this fall when pumpkins were in season but time got away from me. So, when my neighbor gave me a year’s worth of old cooking magazines and told me that the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars were her new family favorite, I jumped.
Since I had a number of them in my cupboard, I replaced the chocolate chips in the original recipe with chopped Naga Exotic Candy Bars (dark milk chocolate, curry and coconut) from Vosges Haut-Chocolat . Also, I undercooked the bars slightly as I prefer gooey over cakey. Finally, you will need to use canned pumpkin this time of year but there are plenty out there without any additives.
For anyone who doesn’t live in the U.S., I have found that getting pumpkin abroad is quite difficult. I bet you could use almost any roasted and pureed squash. If you try it… let me know!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 t vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
12 ounces chocolate chips or chunks
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.
Mix together flour, pie spice, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined Beat in pumpkin puree (mixture looks a bit curdled). Reduce speed and mix in dry ingredients just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Spread batter evenly in pan and bake 35-40 minutes or until edges pull away from the pan and toothpick comes out clean.
(recipe adapted from Everyday Food)
January 25th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I saw this recipe in Everday Foods a while back and was curious. I have a more cakey version I make from something else. I think I’ll try your version. I too recently baked some not-so-good pumpkin cookies, which was disappointing. Thanks!
January 26th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Mmm. I love anything pumpkin…I’m def. going to try this recipe! They look amazing.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
i too like pumpkin and was thrilled with the outcome of another pumpkin + chocolate chip cookie recipe. it’s super simple (only 3 ingredients!) and the cookies come out nice and gooey. i wrote about it on my blog http://rebbermade.blogspot.com
i’ll have to give your recipe a try and compare the two. yum!
January 29th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
oops! here’s the direct link to the cookie recipe mentioned above…
http://rebbermade.blogspot.com/2006/12/cookies.html
January 31st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Hi Caroline,
Thanks for commenting on my blog. I wanted to tell you I tried the Apple cake ( your first blog entr)y and it was REALLY delicous. Thanks for the great recipe.
Josie
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I love these! I tried them and applaud the soft gooey cake texture! yum! I am going to try your pulled pork next but I am not eating meat at the moment so i will experiment with tempeh and a shorter cooking cycle!:) ha!
October 31st, 2007 at 9:56 pm
[...] Would you rather… never read another pumpkin recipe again OR overdose on everything pumpkin so that you can barely choke down a piece of pumpkin pie come Thanksgiving? Well, tis the time of year for pumpkin recipes and I have jumped on the bandwagon. Last year, I tried these pumpkin bars. This year, I stayed in the dessert category and followed my buttermilk love with this moist, bundt cake. [...]
November 17th, 2007 at 11:39 am
I was looking for a recipe to attempt to recreate the awesomeness that is the Vosges Naga cookie. I used this recipe but used curry instead of pumpkin pie spice and just used semisweet mini chocolate chips. I used about 1/2 cup of brown sugar too because I ran out of white sugar. They are amazing (of course it’s no Vosges cookie) but I think they could actually be spicier. Wonderful with a cup of coffee! Nice blog btw
December 4th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I live in Germany and have found you can use a hokkaido pumpkin. I prefer the smaller ones so I am able to cook it over a shallow bowl of water for about 15 minutes in the microwave + then scoop it out. You can also cook them in the oven, but I prefer the quick and moist option.
I’m also on the hunt of a knock off of the vosges naga cookie – they are divine… and of course not available in Germany.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:22 am
i found your blog and just love it! i know this recipe was from last year, but having just found it i tried it out for thanksgiving. thanks so much for posting it!
i made a few changes–
1. i just used cinnamon as i’m not a fan of the nutmeg in pumpkin pie spice.
2. i used the whole can of pumpkin–i had to add baking time.
3. i used half brown sugar and half white sugar.
these bars were soo yummy that there were none left to take home from thanksgiving dinner!
December 11th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
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