- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
Today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making pumpkin bars.
So let's get started.
First off, set that oven to 350,
grab a jelly roll sheet, which I don't have,
but I'll explain that in a minute.
We are going to need some brown sugar, granulated sugar,
baking powder, pumpkin, I almost forgot about that,
for the pumpkin bars.
Spices, we need spices too.
Cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
I left this open and it was on its side
and normally, I would just lift it up and move it away.
But today, for some reason, I picked it up carefully.
I was like, 'oh, what a miracle, it didn't spill."
Now we're ready to start.
Into a large bowl, I'm adding two cups,
or 240 grams, of all-purpose flour.
1/4 cup of sugar, that's 50 grams.
That's why I love using a scale, so easy.
And then for brown sugar, I want one cup,
but I'm going to pack it.
I know I could have weighed this out.
It's 220 grams-ish.
But, if you look in here, you'll see there's a ton of rocks.
So I can't just dump it in,
I want to break it up with my hands.
So instead of having these pebbles,
which are hard to mix in, which it just dropped in.
I'm going to put some in my hands and break it apart
and just sprinkle it in like that.
That's one of the things I do
whenever I have brown sugar in a recipe.
I like to work it with my hands,
just to make sure it's all not lumpy.
Because those lumps won't dissolve.
This is your moment of Zen.
Very satisfying.
(zen music)
Wait a second, oh no.
(John laughs)
What am I doing?
I'm supposed to be whisking together
the flour, the salt, the baking powder and baking soda.
And then the wet ingredients get mixed separately.
This is fine. It's a mix-together recipe.
I mean, technically you could almost all do it in one bowl.
It's going to take a little bit of this out.
I'm just taking out the sugar, not the flour.
Okay. That's fine.
(ding sound)
If you've watched this channel before,
you know I've made cakes where I forgot to put the sugar in
until the very last step.
It still works out. It'll be okay.
All right, I need a teaspoon of baking powder,
a teaspoon of baking soda.
(John laughs)
I feel like this is what it's really like
to bake in the kitchen for most people like
"ah, I forgot, cause what happened?"
And it's me included.
Leavening agents in, 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt.
That's just about what I have in this bowl.
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon.
1/2 of allspice. One of my favorites.
Allspice has such a rich scent, and I'm realizing
that my grandmother used it a lot in her baking.
So it brings back these childhood memories
of Sunday dinners.
1/4 teaspoon of ginger, I believe? Yeah.
Ginger and pumpkin go hand-in-hand.
Then 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg,
but you definitely can use ground nutmeg, that's fine.
I love using fresh nutmeg, it has so much extra flavor.
For that, you're going to want to rasp.
And in case you're wondering, this outside part
of the nutmeg nut is called mace.
So if you ever used the spice mace,
it's just that one part of the nutmeg.
If you could smell this.
I don't need my scale anymore.
Going to whisk this up together.
Set that aside, and now in a separate bowl,
we're going to combine our sugar,
our brown sugar, one cup packed.
Oh, look at that, it's nice in there.
And then we have three eggs.
One, these are nice eggs, I love that golden yolk.
(John laughs)
This counter is looking a little chaotic, I'm aware.
(upbeat music)
2/3 of a cup of veggie oil.
You could also use any flavorless oil that you enjoy using.
So like grape seed oil, if you wanted to
you could even use olive oil,
but olive oil is a little expensive.
And you're not going to taste the oil.
In you go, 2/3 of a cup.
1/4 cup of milk.
Two teaspoons of a nice vanilla.
And finally, that can of pumpkin.
We're using a 15 ounce can, that is 425 grams
of just nice pumpkin puree.
I'm not getting paid to say this, but I like using Libby.
I just find like it has like a nice texture and taste.
See, that's nice.
Let's then add the pumpkin puree right in here.
This is a bowl of like some delicious stuff.
And basically, if you haven't had pumpkin bars before,
it's like pumpkin cake.
It's just so good, I can't even describe it.
Like really soft, melt in your mouth, full of spices.
And then you have this amazing cream cheese frosting.
We're going to give this a whisk until it's well combined.
This is your chance to just find any remaining bits
of brown sugar that are lumpy,
and give everything just a nice mix.
It's mix, mix, mix. Emulsified, smooth and delicious.
Whenever you make like any kind of a roll cake,
a little jelly roll bar situation, or even a sheet cake.
You don't want to have it rise unevenly.
If you ever have a big lump in your cake,
things weren't mixed together all the way,
so you had a little bit more leavening agent
on one side or it just wasn't homogenous.
So make sure you mix, mix, mix, before you can't mix.
I'll explain that next.
Okay, this looks really lovely. It smells great too.
All we have to do is pour the wet into the dry,
just like that, look at how pretty that color is.
The kids are going to lose their minds
when they have these pumpkin bars,
because I made this recipe last year for them
and they still talk about it.
I said mix until you can't and here's the deal.
Once you combine the wet and the dry,
I'm actually not even going to use this.
Well, a little bit.
You can mix it until it's just combined.
If you ever wonder like
"oh, why didn't I get that fluffy, amazing cake?"
The recipe was talking about,
chances are you may have over-mixed the batter.
When you over-mix the batter,
you're activating the proteins in the flour
and it's going to contract the cake back down as it cools.
It'll be kind of gummy and dense, even chewy.
All I want to do is make sure
there's no powdery flour bits in here.
So I'm just going to fold this together
until there's no hidden nonsense hanging out.
And I actually like using a spatula
more than a whisk for this,
because the whisk just goes crazy, it's so messy.
And the spatula, you really have a nice control
and you can feel what's in the batter.
Taking a look. Okay, this looks really nice.
It smells amazing too.
(plucky music)
This is such a weird contraption.
So I actually don't have a jelly roll pan.
I have so many half sheet and quarter sheet
and full sheet pans, but no jelly roll pans.
It's a little bit smaller, it's 10 by 15.
So I just rigged one up.
I folded some foil, moved it down,
it has roughly the same area as a jelly roll pan.
And now we're just going to put some parchment paper
over the top and pour it in. It'll work just fine.
Now we're going to pour our batter into our pan.
The difference between this and a pumpkin roll,
any kind of a roll cake,
you're not going to have like any fat in the batter.
It needs to be really soft and flexible
and the fat, strangely enough, doesn't make that happen.
So you incorporate fat to make it delicious
with the frosting.
So it's rolled in a delicious, cream cheese frosting
and it's moist, but it's just, like, very airy.
This is a cake, so you couldn't do that.
One thing we're going to do is really level this out.
So this use your spatula and have a nice, even layer
because this cake is so thin, or the bars are so thin,
it wouldn't have time to spread out evenly.
It would just be a weird mound, which we don't want.
Our cake's going to go into the oven,
350 for about 25 minutes and center rack, please.
It'll spring back in the center when it's done.
(upbeat music)
While that cakes baking, or cooling,
we're going to make that frosting.
You can use a hand mixer if you want,
but this, it's like can set it, you can walk away,
do something else.
We're going to want to paddle attachment.
(John laughs)
Sorry, this had a little secret pool of melting
because I microwaved this at 50% power,
but just a little bit got melt-y, but that's okay.
Cream your butter for just a few seconds.
Yeah, that looks like it's totally nice and soft.
Creaming your butter is just a way to give it a start
and like smooth it out if it's a little bit cool,
because room temperature is different for everybody.
This is eight ounces, right?
Yes. Eight ounces of cream cheese, one block.
Now we're going to mix this up until it's nice and smooth.
You want to have the cream cheese and the butter
just well combined before you add the sugar.
(upbeat music)
Let that go for like a minute.
(upbeat music)
All right.
Just give it one scrape down for good-times sake.
I want three cups are about 340 or so grams,
340 to 360 grams of powdered sugar.
Now, here's the deal.
Mix this on low, low speed and just let it do its thing.
It'll come together, just trust and believe.
One teaspoon of vanilla, and when you come back
after doing a couple of dishes,
it'll be the most amazing, delicious frosting.
Couple dishes later, and look at this.
Creamy, amazing frosting that looks just like magic
and it's going to taste delicious.
All we have to do is top our cake, so let's pull it up.
Once your cake is cooled,
go ahead and plop it out of the pan.
See, that worked just fine.
I did order a jelly roll pan during the break.
Actually, Brian ordered one for me.
He's like, "what are you doing?" All right.
Plop lop that delicious cream cheese frosting
all over the top, and I want to show you
how to get those nice swoops.
I've been practicing my swoops lately,
so I'm very excited to share.
Spoon or a rounded corner spatula like this.
Then we're just going to spread to the edges.
So now just work that frosting with your spatula.
So you have little swoops, hither and thither.
Don't worry if it's a little see-through in some places,
because we're going to add a sprinkling of spice
to make everything nice.
Okay, and if you want a little bit more
of a dramatic effect,
just lift your spatula almost straight up
and you'll have little curls coming out.
I think it's pretty.
It's a little cinnamon.
We're going to give the cake to cut into small bars,
your choice of the size, rectangles, squares,
it's whatever you want.
If you liked this recipe, check out my pumpkin playlist.
(quiet upbeat music)
Oh my gosh, that is beyond delicious,
it's melts in your mouth.
So soft and fluffy, all the fall spices, the pumpkin flavor
and that cream cheese frosting takes it over the top.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe
and I'll see you in the next video.