em + the kitchen - pumpkin toffee bars.

I'm not a huge fan of using cake mix in recipes because it eliminates that "from scratch" quality that I take pride in.
But sometimes you find a recipe that calls for it and you know it still MUST be made, because how could you pass up more pumpkin?
You can't, that's how. It's always so tasty.

And these bars were no exception.

I promise (maybe...?) that after Thanksgiving, I'll give you less pumpkin and move on to different winter treats. I am super looking forward to Christmas, ya'll. Lots of baking in my future.

Anyway. On to the pumpkiny, gooey, toffee-y goodness that is these bars.

Pumpkin Toffee Bars
(recipe from Crazy for Crust)

Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup toffee bits
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350* and prepare a 9" square baking dish well. Coat that sucker.
Combine the first 5 ingredients together with a stand mixer. Batter will be very sticky and thick.
Press half the batter into the dish and use your hands to spread it to the edges. I coated my hands with cooking spray as the original website suggested and that worked really well for me. It would've been a mess without it.
Sprinkle the pecans and toffee on top, then spread the sweetened milk on top of that.
Finish with the other half of the batter on top of all that and spread to the edges like you did with the first half.
Bake for about 25 minutes and let cool completely before slicing into them.

What dish are you making for Thanksgiving?
I've had which dessert I'm bringing planned for a few weeks now!
-e.