Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars

It's obviously the onset of fall with all these pumpkin recipes that I have been posting about recently, but I can't seem to get enough of them. I would suggest keeping a can of pumpkin on hand at all times during this season...you never know when you will need it. Besides then you will avoid the rush of everyone wanting pumpkin closer to Thanksgiving and then finding out it is all gone when you get to the store. This recipe came from Pennies on a Platter via another one of my Pinterest sessions. I love the good old chocolate chip cookie, but throw in some pumpkin and what's not to love about that. I also have to say that this recipe literally takes no more than an hour from start to finish, including washing dishes. I know you are skeptical because there are lots of recipes that say that they only take 30 minutes, but what they really mean is 30 minutes of preparation time. I promise you these are beyond super simple and you probably have most of the ingredients on hand. The unique thing about these is that they have a subtle spice flavor because of the nutmeg and allspice. It works really well with the pumpkin and the chocolate adds the chocolate flavor that few can resist.

There are five steps to this process. Preheat oven and prepare pan. Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Mix the two together and add chocolate chips. Pour into the pan to bake. The wet ingredients are 1/2 cup of pumpkin, 1 egg, 2 egg whites, and 1 tbsp canola oil. The dry ingredients are 1 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cocoa, 2/3 cups packed brown sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp allspice. Once all the ingredients are mixed together, add in the chocolate chips. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup, however, I don't think you can go wrong with too many, so I added more along the lines of 1 cup. The batter will be pretty easy to get into the parchment lined pan. The only issue I ran into was that I didn't have an 11 x 7 pan, so I used a 13 x 9 pan. This made them a little thinner then normal. I also made them in a 9 x 9 pan and found the 9 x 9 pan make thicker, cakier brownies. I guess it really just depends on what you want. Bake for 10-15 minutes and let them cool. Then slice and enjoy. Once you bite into them, you get the notes of spice and pumpkin and then the chocolate flavor. These are a great twist on a traditional chocolate chip cookie. Though mine didn't end up looking like the picture in the original recipe, they were very yummy. Since Halloween is just around the corner and these are pretty festive, I decided that I will be using these in my goodies bags this year. It will be something different from the usual store bought candy. So whip yourself up a batch of these and cozy up with your favorite book!