Recipe // Pumpkin Bars

Pumpkin_BarsWhen you travel for a long duration of time whether it be two weeks or eight months, you begin to have frequent conversations of the food you miss from home. The comfort foods from your childhood, hometown restaurants, and those you create in your own kitchen. One thing that we were always craving were the sandwiches, cheese fries, and spice cake from a Quad-Cities only deli called Hungry Hobo (if you’re ever in the area, you HAVE to stop). While we were home this past summer for three months we definitely ate enough spice cake from there to make up for the previously missed eight months. Now that we are yet again out of Hungry Hobo’s location range, we’ve resorted to making and devouring this decadent, rich, life-changing pumpkin bar recipe to remind us of home. Special thank you shout-out to the Fox family for sharing this recipe with us – we can’t get enough of it!

PumpkinBars-2 PumpkinBars-3Pumpkin Bars:

for bars
15 oz can pumpkin
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

for frosting
8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together all the ingredients for the pumpkin bars until smooth, pour into a greased 10×15 or 11×14 jelly roll pan, and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the vanilla with the softened cream cheese and butter then slowly mix in the powdered sugar until frosting is smooth. Allow the pumpkin bars to cool completely before frosting and devouring.