Pinterest [pumpkin] recipes tried and tweaked!

Photo from Inside BruCrew Life

It's always fun to try new recipes, and I always find loads of new recipes on Pinterest that I want to try.  When I try them out,  I like to post about the results (when I remember!).  My Perfectly Pumpkin Pinterest board (now there's a mouthful!) is filled with recipes I just couldn't resist pinning.  So I want to share about a few that I have tried.

These Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookie Bars (photo at top) are from a recipe that I tried last year.  I actually have a pan of them in the oven right now.  I'm sure the chocolate glaze on top adds the perfect finishing touch, but I decided to save calories by leaving it off, and the bars were delicious without it.  You may not think chocolate and pumpkin would go together that well, but they really do.

I made these Cinnamon Chip Pumpkin Cookies to take on our lakeside getaway up north in late September.

Photo from Baker by Nature

They were very good.  It's unusual to find a pumpkin cookie that is nice and chewy and not soft and pillowy, but these are.  I didn't have cinnamon chips on hand, but I did have some pumpkin spice morsels left from last year (bought on clearance) so I used those. 

I also made a pumpkin streusel coffeecake to take along, but I can't find the pinned recipe that I used for that.  It was very good, though not as good as my usual Pumpkin Coffeecake recipe that I've used for years. However, it was just right for this trip because it was a lot quicker and easier than my usual, and I was doing this baking just a day or two before we headed north.

This week I tried a couple of other pinned recipes.  I want to end on an upbeat note, so I'll talk first about these Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars which were somewhat of a fail.

Photo by A Kitchen Addiction

I was quite disappointed in these, though I still don't know if it was me or the recipe or a combination of both.  The bar part turned out far too dry, and I think too thick as well.  It really seemed to me that these should have been baked in a 13x9-inch pan, but the recipe clearly specified an 8 or 9-inch square pan.

The frosting part, though, was really great.  I did have to add the additional confectioner's sugar, and maybe even a bit more, to get it to the consistency I wanted, but it was truly pumpkin-y and delicious, and I will keep this frosting in mind for other recipes.  It would be great on cupcakes.

Lastly, my favorite of the three recipes that I tried for the first time this year was these Pumpkin Magic Bars.

Photo by Crazy for Crust

They turned out truly delicious and I will definitely be baking these again.  Dorothy's idea of adding pumpkin and spice to the sweetened condensed milk is genius and something I would never have thought of.   (Which doesn't say much for my creativity,  I guess.)

 I did tweak this recipe quite a bit because I wanted to double the recipe and make it in a 13x9-inch pan.  I used some of the proportions in this recipe, doubled, and took some of my quantities from the 13x9 recipe on the graham cracker crumb package.  I used these thin gingersnaps

(Photo from Walmart.com)

 for the crust because I don't have a food processor and knew I was going to be making these crumbs with a rolling pin.  I wasn't sure how far the gingersnaps would go (I needed 1 1/2 cup crumbs), so I used 1 cup of gingersnap crumbs and 1/2 cup of graham cracker  crumbs.  In retrospect, I think that the package of gingersnaps would have produced just enough crumbs.

And I used a whole can of sweetened condensed milk.  While it's possible to use only part of the can, it's messy, and one has to figure out how to use the leftovers.  Also, I didn't double the pecans or the toffee bits.  Oh, and left out the sugar in the crust.  You know, I think probably, even though I've linked to Dorothy's recipe as is, I'd better write out just what I did for the 13x9-inch pan.

Revised Pumpkin Magic Bars for a 13x9 pan
1 package Swedish ginger thins, crushed into crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup toffee bits
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350º.  Spray 13x9-inch pan well with cooking spray -- I use a coconut oil one.  Combine the ginger thin crumbs with the melted butter or margarine and press this mixture into the prepared pan in an even layer.

Sprinkle the chips, pecans, coconut and toffee bits evenly over this layer.

Whisk together the condensed milk with the pumpkin puree and pie spice.  Pour this mixture evenly over the top of the other ingredients.

Bake at 350º for 29-31 minutes, or until edges have begun to brown.  Remove from oven and let cool completely before cutting into small squares.

These are delicious and I also found that they freeze very well, packed in a tin between layers of wax paper.

Hope you will enjoy these recipes if you try one or more of them.  It's always fun to try some new pumpkin recipes every fall!