Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bar Recipe

The oven pointer strikes again! I’m a pumpkin fanatic, so I do it the hard way. I start with organic Colorado pie pumpkins. There are two secrets for really good pumpkin ~ use fresh pumpkin, and use small, dark-orange pumpkins. They are better for you (the dark colors hold the nutrients) and they taste better and have better texture. The seeds can be toasted and eaten, but I toss a lot of the scraped out innards with the seeds into a “sort-of” compost pile in the garden and get overwhelmed with wonderful volunteer pumpkins every year. I made over 20 pumpkin pies from scratch last fall with our own volunteer pie pumpkins.

Because I like maximum control over my pumpkin puree, I use a big, long knife and slice my pumpkin in two, then split those pieces again and once again. I scrape out the innards. Then I use a paring knife to slice off the hard shell, cut up the pumpkin slice into a few smaller pieces, and put them into my steamer. I steam them just long enough so that a fork will penetrate. I let it all cool, then put into my VitaMix and puree. Now I have lovely, fresh, orange pumpkin puree with a minimum of processing. It’s a maximum of work, but that’s how much I love my pumpkin. You can steam the pieces with the shell on and then scrape it out. It’s probably safer. I did that once and for some reason decided I like my difficult process better. Anyway,…

I took the Harvest Pumpkin Bars recipe off the Land o Lakes site and “converted” it. I’ll do a separate blog on sweeteners and explain why we bake with sucanat (sugar cane natural). Please don’t use white refined sugar. It is terrible for your health. Get off of it completely. For this recipe, we incorporated the Pamela’s baking mix. We will probably work on developing our own, following some of the mixes in Rebecca Reilly’s book or others. Pamela’s was a good place to start and was quick and easy.

1/2 cup sucanat (or at least turbinado)
3/4 cup real butter, softened [Organic Valley is good; raw butter is great!]
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin* [about 2 cups of pureed pumpkin]
4 eggs

2 1/4 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour mix [for flour & baking powder/soda, we just use 2 1/4 cups of Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking & Pancake Mix]
2 teaspoons baking powder [already in the mix above]
1 teaspoon baking soda [already in the mix above]
1/2 teaspoon salt [instead of 1/2 tsp, I do toss in a little extra sea salt -- Pamela's has some salt in it]

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon [I'm generous with cinnamon and sprinkle in cloves and nutmeg -- you could even toss in ginger]

Heat oven to 350°F. Combine sugar, butter, pumpkin and eggs in large bowl. [I go ahead and beat the sucanat and butter together first, then add the others] Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour mix [above] and cinnamon [plus other spices you like]. Beat, scraping bowl often, until well mixed.

Pour into ungreased 15×10x1-inch jelly-roll pan [or a smaller pan and get thicker bars, or two smaller pans] Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Enjoy! Especially hot from the oven.