Low Carb Gluten Free Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
Scrumptious little pumpkin bars filled with nuts, seeds and chocolate!
Servings 12 bars
Calories 375kcal
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 210 g blanched almond flour about 1.5 cup tightly packed
- 50 g whey protein isolate about ½ cup
- 120 ml erythritol
- ¾ tsp stevia powder or monk fruit
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp cardamon powder
- ½ tsp cloves
- ½ tsp ginger
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 60 g chopped walnuts about ½ cup
- 25 g almond slices about ¼ cup
- 35 g pumpkin seeds about ¼ cup
- 75 g lily's chocolate chips about ½ cup
Wet Ingredients
- 240 ml unsweetened pumpkin puree
- 8 tbsp refined coconut oil or butter, ghee, shortening, lard
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, white vinegar
- 1 egg
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 227 g cream cheese 1 philly block
- 90 ml heavy cream
- 45 g powdered erythritol
- ⅛ tsp stevia powder or monk fruit powder
- ½ tsp vanilla essence
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
- Add all of the dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix together.
- Add the wet ingredients to that same bowl and mix to combine. The batter shouldn't be too thick, nor thin.
- Line a 22x30cm (9x12") baking dish with parchment paper. Pour in the pumpkin bar batter into the baking dish and spread evenly. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
- Once the cake is baked, take it out of the oven and let completely cool.In the meantime, you can make the cream cheese frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Add the cream cheese to a bowl and whip with your beaters until softened. This should take 20-30 seconds.Add the erythritol to combine.Pour in the heavy cream in 4-5 batches. This is so that the cream doesn't splatter everywhere.Beat for a few minutes, until the frosting starts to thicken up.Once it's thickened up, add the stevia and vanilla to the frosting and mix to combine.
- Once your cake has cooled down, you can then spread the cream cheese frosting all over the cake evenly.This makes 12 bars.
Video
Notes
These pumpkin bars are good in the fridge for about a week! Also good in the freezer for about 3 months.
Before making these scrumptious gluten free pumpkin bars, here is a quick recap of all my tips and possible substitutions that you can do for this recipe.
- Make sure to line your baking dish with some parchment paper so that the cake doesn't stick. If you have a really good non-stick baking dish, just make sure to oil it first.
- Make sure to use refined coconut oil as extra-virgin coconut oil will give this cake a major coconut taste!
- Make sure to test with a toothpick the middle of the cake whether it's baked or not as all of ovens differ in temperature.
- Make sure to use unsweetened pumpkin puree and sugar free chocolate chips!
- Instead of coconut oil, you can use butter, ghee, avocado oil, lard, shortening, etc. Any type of fat will work.
- Instead of pumpkin puree, you can use mashed kabocha, grated zucchini or carrots.
- Instead of walnuts, almond slices, or pumpkin seeds, you can use any other type of nuts or seeds you like.
- Instead of whey protein, you can substitute for ½ cup of almond flour. It just won't be as fluffy and crumbly. It will also add a bit of carbs to the nutritional information.
- Instead of stevia, you can use monk fruit powder.
- Instead of erythritol, you can use xylitol.
- Instead of almond flour, you can use sunflower seed flour.
- Instead of apple cider vinegar, you can use lemon juice or white vinegar.