These
Pumpkin Pie Bars from Snixy Kitchen serve up pumpkin pie realness without having to make a pie crust!
You have two options for the crust, graham cracker crumb or shortbread. I went with the shortbread and it was flaky and buttery, with exciting hits of kosher salt. I didn't want to have to clean my stand mixer, so I used a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour instead, which might have given it a bit more of a pastry vibe. It made a wonderful contrast to the silky smooth pumpkin custard.
Snixy gives some advice for how to make these dairy free, and I used
Miyoko's salted plant milk butter in the crust and
Country Crock's plant cream in the custard. Both worked really well, though if you're using a salted vegan butter and you're sensitive to salt, you might want to cut down on the kosher salt in the crust.
You can cook these in an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 inch pan lined with parchment paper. I used a metal 9 x 9 pan, which I think was the right choice. The crust would have been a lot thicker in the smaller pan, and it was already pretty thick in the 9 x 9, more like a lemon bar crust than a pie crust. You parbake the crust, press it down to compact it, then pour the pumpkin custard over the top and put it back in the oven.
I baked the bars 40 minutes, then let them sit in the pan on the counter until completely cooled. After that I moved the pan to the fridge, but didn't cover it with plastic wrap because I didn't want any condensation to drip down onto the custard. I did, however, store them in the fridge that
didn't have the turkey roast covered in raw garlic in it. *taps temple*
Now, I really value Snixy's recipes, but she doesn't tell you how TO GET THESE OUT OF THE PAN: I gently wiggled the parchment paper at the corners where the bars were touching the pan until they released, then, with help so that all four sides of the parchment paper were being lifted at the same time, swung them out of the pan and onto a cutting board. The custard didn't even wrinkle. I cut them while cold, using a sharp chef's knife, then plated them and let them warm to room temperature for service.
24 hours after making them, the crust was crisp and flaky and delicious. 24 hours after that, the crust had softened considerably, having absorbed moisture from the custard. It was still tasty, but no longer provided an exciting contrast to the softness of the custard as the whole thing was pretty soft. So you can easily make these a day ahead, but probably no more than that.