Recipe: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Brownies

‘Tis the season for pumpkin baked goods. Pumpkin is one of my favorite ingredients to bake with, so it would only make sense that I make pumpkin brownies, right?  I couldn’t believe that I had never thought about making pumpkin brownies before.  I have made chocolate pumpkin loaf and pumpkin blondies, but never pumpkin brownies.  Once I discovered that I had neglected a very important part of the dessert spectrum, I began to brainstorm how to bring my plan to fruition.

As I was browsing through my pantry to take inventory of the ingredients I had on hand, I found that this recipe, if you want to call it that, was going to be much simpler than I thought.  I found a box of Betty Crocker’s gluten-free brownie mix, which I figured I could just add some canned pumpkin to.  The next question was how much pumpkin to add.  I remember subbing applesauce for the fat (butter or oil) in recipes previously, so why not sub pumpkin for the butter in the brownies?   That is just what I did.

I followed the directions on the box, but instead of adding 1 stick of butter, I added 1/2 cup of 100% pure pumpkin.  I still added the 2 eggs.  The mix was a little thicker than normal, but was relatively easy to spread into an 8 x 8 pan.  I did end up baking these a little longer than the box said to for an 8 x 8 pan.  I began checking the brownies with a toothpick about 20 minutes into baking.  The toothpick wasn’t completely clean, but it  only had minimal crumbs on it.

These brownies turned out fantastic!  They were moist & fudgy, just the way I like them!  They didn’t have an overwhelming pumpkin flavor, it was very subtle.  If we could have waited a bit longer to eat them, I might have added a cinnamon icing to compliment the subtle pumpkin flavor.  Here is a recipe for the icing:

Cinnamon Icing

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp milk (may need more)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together and drizzle or spread over the brownies.  This icing can be made to your desired consistency by adjusting the amount of milk added.