Paleo Pumpkin Pie Bars

A few months back my buddy DB over at Florida Hillbilly did an article on making homemade Lara Bars. Like me hes big into DIY and being cheap. His bars looked super simple to make and delicious. Today I basically followed his template but kicked it up a notch with my favorite pie flavor and one Lara Bars sadly does not make. Pumpkin Pie, the king of pies, in my humble opinion.

This is my second go at making pumpkin pie bars. The first attempt was actually pretty sucessful, so successful I actually ate the entire batch that day. I used the only dates I could find locally which were covered in malto dextrin however and were super sweet. This second batch I went to Whole Foods to get proper ingredients. This is what I used to make my Paleo Pumpkin Pie Bars.

• Pitted Dates
• Organic Pumpkin Puree
• Organic Pumpkin Seeds (unsalted)
• Pumpkin Pie Filling

To give the food processor a hand  I cut the dates into smaller pieces. I cut up about a cup of dates and tossed them into the food processor.

The good thing about this brand of canned pumpkin was that it was more firm than most. A lot of canned pumpkin comes out rather runny, which was a problem with my first batch. I added two tbsp of pumpkin to the processor.

Please take my advise and use shelled pumpkin seeds. My first go round I shelled the seeds myself. It is a long slow boring process. I do not recommend attempting it.

The last ingredient is Pumpkin Pie spice. This is really what makes pumpkin pie taste good. Pumpkin by itself is not a tasty fruit. This is the most important ingredient! I used just shy of 1 tbsp.

I ran everything through the ninja food processor until basically blended. It’s not the best food processor. It came out a little on the runny side so I put it into the fridge for thirty minutes to set. Which it got much easier to handle. More like that of a real Lara Bar.

The result is a pumpkin  pie flavored bar. Really close the the flavor of real pumpkin pie. The texture is a bit off. A little too mushy and not consistent enough. Had some chunks in there. So while it missed the mark on the wonderful custard texture of pumpkin pie it tasted great. In the cool fall weather I think these would be good to carry for a day. I would not think they would do well in summer or without refrigeration more than a day or so.  They do help fill the pumpkin sized  hole in my paleo life though. Give em a try and let me know what you think.

Have any pumpkin recipes? Let me know in the comments.

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