Do you know what you get when you take pumpkin pie and combine them with sugar cookie bars? You get pumpkin cookie bars! Everything you love about the warm spice of pumpkin pie served up as a soft baked cookie bar. The best bite is the cream cheese icing on top. Elevate your Fall baking this year with iced pumpkin cookie bars!
HOW TO DRY CANNED PUMPKIN
This is the most important technique in this recipe. You have to remove A LOT of extra water from the pumpkin in order to get a cookie dough texture here. If you skip this step, the dough won’t come together and you’ll end up with something that’s more of a cakey texture instead of a gooey soft baked cookie. There are two methods for this: paper towel or cheese cloth.
PAPER TOWEL METHOD
I’ve found that this method only works well for my when I use Libby’s brand pumpkin. When I’ve used store brand the paper towel stuck to the pumpkin and it didn’t work at all. But for this method you’ll go through a lot of paper towels but you want to continuously blot until very little moisture is being pressed from the pumpkin (there will still be some moisture but it should be minimal.)
CHEESECLOTH METHOD
Add the pumpkin to the cloth and continuously squeeze until the bulk of the liquid has been removed. There will still be some moisture coming off the pumpkin, but it should be minimal.
Whichever method you use you want the pumpkin to have a texture like slightly damp cookie dough. There will still be some moisture, but you should be able to easily handle it without hands without it getting all messy or sticking to your hands.
HOW TO MAKE PUMPKIN COOKIE BARS
STEP 1: Dry the canned pumpkin and set aside. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
STEP 2: Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda.
STEP 3: Combine the wet ingredients and sugars in a bowl: melted butter, pumpkin, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla extract, egg, and molasses.
STEP 4: Combine the wet and dry ingredients together to form the cookie dough. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.
STEP 5: Line an 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper and mold the cookie dough to cover the entire pan. Bake for 25 minutes.
STEP 6: While the bars are baking, combine the ingredients to make the cream cheese frosting.
STEP 7: Allow the cookie to cool completely then ice and slice into cookie bars.
SUBSTITUTIONS AND VARIATIONS
While I think these cookie bars are absolutely perfect just the way they are, here are some tasty substitutions or variations you can try.
- Add sprinkles to the frosting
- Semi-sweet or dark dark chocolate morsels
- Chopped nuts like pecans or walnuts
- Increase the ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg
- Add crushed graham crackers on top
Get your pumpkin baking on! Here are some more of my favorite pumpkin recipes:
Pumpkin sugar cookies
Pumpkin bread French toast sticks
Pumpkin white chocolate chip cookies
Pumpkin spice latte cookies
Or search through my full pumpkin collection.
PrintIced Pumpkin Cookie Bars
Iced pumpkin cookie bars are the perfect combination between pumpkin pie and sugar cookie bars!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Baking
- Method: Bake
Ingredients
2 and 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup canned pumpkin, dried to remove excess moisture
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 stick of butter, melted
1 egg
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 3/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1 and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
For the icing
4 ounces of cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
1. Start by drying the pumpkin puree. You can’t skip this step or the cookies will end up cakey and puffy. Use Libby’s brand only, store brands I found were way too wet. Cheesecloth method: Add the pumpkin to a cheese cloth and squeeze continuously until most of the moisture is removed. The pumpkin should be the consistency of damp putty where you can handle it with your hands and it doesn’t stick. Or use the paper towel drying method: Continuously blot it with paper towels until most of the water has been removed. (If using a different brand pumpkin I found sometimes pieces of paper towel can stick to it, so cheesecloth method would be best if not using Libby’s).
2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl combine the wet ingredients: start with the melted butter, then the white and dark brown sugars, then whisk in the pumpkin. Next stir in the molasses, vanilla, and last the egg.
3. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger, nutmeg.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until fully incorporated. Chill the dough for 10 minutes.
5. Line an 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper. Once the dough is done chilling, add it into the baking dish and press to flatten it to cover the entire bottom of the dish. I like to dollop the dough over top of the dish instead of starting with one big mound, I find it helps to get an even coverage.
6. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. For a softer “medium rare” cookie bake for only 20 minutes. While the cookie is baking, prepare the the icing by combining the softened cream cheese, vanilla, powdered sugar and nutmeg.
7. After the pumpkin cookie has completely cooled from baking, remove from the baking dish. Cover with the icing, then slice into cookie bars however big or small you want them.
Enjoy!