I have been dying to share this recipe. This has been one of my FAVORITE fall/Halloween desserts for YEARS! My mom would make it every October and it is just such a perfect treat. One reason I love these bars is that it makes a BIG amount so if you are bringing dessert to an event to share, you have a ton to bring without shaping individual cookies.

In college during my single years I would carry on the tradition of making these pumpkin bars… we would put the big pan into the fridge and gradually consume the whole thing a bite at a time… it’s irresistible!

Let’s talk about how easy this is to make and watch my kids helping 🙂

DUMP IN THE WET INGREDIENTS

I’m pretty sure they were fighting over who was going to dump in the oil… so they both ended up sharing that job! Haha!

MIX THE WET INGREDIENTS WITH THE SUGAR

DUMP IN and MIX THE DRY INGREDIENTS

MIX WET AND DRY TOGETHER IN A LARGE BOWL

Let’s talk a little bit about age appropriate kitchen activities.

I learned something while trying to make this with my daughter who is 2 (almost 3). She sometimes has a lot of trouble following directions! It was not a good moment (for me). She was super excited to help with the hand mixer to blend the cream cheese with the butter. I was skeptical she could handle it and debated about having her involved, but I decided to allow her to hold the handle and turn up the speed. But she kept reaching her other hand into the bowl where the mixer was going! Ahh! I repeatedly asked her to stop putting her fingers in until I realized she just isn’t ready to do this task. So we had to stop and I finished making the frosting on my own while she played. It was a lesson learned. In general my rule is my kids (age 4 and 2) don’t do anything that is SHARP or HOT. I do realize that kids of toddler age can be really unique in their abilities. All kitchen activities should be done with close supervision!

Also something I’ve learned that has helped a lot: on every recipe the level of involvement of your toddlers can vary. If you want to cook with your little ones that doesn’t mean they have to be involved on every step of the recipe. Start with just having them do one part of it (maybe just dumping in ingredients for example), and see how that goes. And at any time you can call it and decide to finish up on your own. Cooking with toddlers is a messy experiment!

What activities do your kids do really well at in the kitchen?? Comment to share!

For this recipe, the tasks that I took care of included…

POURING BATTER INTO THE PAN AND SMOOTHING IT OUT

CHECKING TO SEE WHEN THEY WERE DONE… AND REMOVING FROM THE OVEN

MAKING THE FROSTING WITH A HAND MIXER

SPREAD THE FROSTING

AND SLICE INTO BARS

Then we were able to enjoy these together! My kids loved them!!

Do you have a favorite pumpkin recipe? Share it with me, I’d love to try it! If you want another fun recipe to make with kids this month, you could try these Pumpkin Snickerdoodles… or these easy Mandarin Pumpkins.

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Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 16 oz can pumpkin puree
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Frosting

• 3 ounces cream cheese (at room temperature)
• 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy.

3. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and soda. Add this mixture to the large bowl of liquid ingredients; mix thoroughly.

4. Spread batter in ungreased 15x10 baking pan (jelly roll pan).

5. Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes until it springs back when touched.

6. Let it cool completely, then frost and cut into bars.

Frosting

1. Cream butter and cream cheese together with a hand mixer. Add vanilla. Slowly add powdered sugar a little at a time until smooth. Spread over cooled pumpkin bars before serving.

Recipe Notes

This is a family recipe from my mom Marie!