Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Bars

Well, that's a mouthful! Literally. You're going to be shoving these in five at a time, so don't expect to get much chatting done if you take these to your afternoon tea. Not gonna happen!

This weekend was a last minute stay-at-home weekend, mostly because I had a meltdown about all the stuff I had to do and botched our camping trip. Oopsies. We just postponed, so we'll do it this weekend, which was probably a good thing anyways: with all of the flooding in Boulder, our condo (now that we're married I can lay claim to it, right? ha!) has needed some attention. Luckily, the condo association has been taking care of big stuff (pumping out water, tearing up carpet, assessing drywall, etc), but um... take a look. Might need some attention from us in person soon! Trip to CO, anyone?

The good news is that the tenants moved out earlier this month, so nobody was living there, and it's completely empty. Whew!

Not that I can really call any baking I do "stress baking" — since I'll likely be baking whether or not I'm feeling it, these bars were my Friday morning fix-the-world task. They may not have solved problems in Syria, but they certainly made my morning better!

I was aiming for a dense, brownie-texture pumpkin bar: nailed it! They're surprisingly dense — not cakey — and considering I dumped an extra ½ cup of chocolate chunks (oops/not oops), mine were especially gooey with chocolate. I'll take it!

The real winner here, as usual, is the brown butter. DON'T SKIP THE BROWNING. It's always a pleasure for my nostrils, and this time I really had a hard time not eating the batter before baking. Tastes. SO. GOOD.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Bars

• Author: by Mary
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 40 mins
• Total Time: 55 minutes
• Yield: 12 1x

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¾ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 ½ cups pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chunks (or chips)

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Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Butter a 9x13 baking dish and line with parchment.
2. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Cook until the crackling subsides, swirling gently, and the solids have turned brown and smell nutty. Immediately pour into a mixing bowl to cool.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir to combine, and set aside.
4. Mix the brown sugar into the brown butter until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree, mix completely, then add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.
5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, then fold in chocolate chunks.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when testing the middle of the pan.
7. Let cool 15 minutes before cutting.

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