These Martha Stewart-inspired pumpkin bars are packed with the best flavors of fall

Fall slipped quietly through the side door a few weeks ago with its cooler, crisper air, and I  didn't even notice. Usually I'm prepped and ready before our warm summer temperatures come to an end with a fresh jar of cinnamon, plenty of whole nutmegs, decorative pumpkins of all sizes, plush throws, velvet pillows and bright pots of mums. I am standing at the door waiting for its arrival, but not this year. Not only did I fail to usher in my favorite month of the year (October) with enthusiasm and fanfare, I was blindsided, as evidenced by the beach towels still stacked in the bin on the porch. 

I had a few hiccups going into the season this year; namely, my mother and my husband had back-to-back health crises, which threw me into quite a spin. Both are okay now, my nervous system no longer on high alert and I am making up for lost time baking cookies and cakes, roasting every variety of winter squash I can find and putting out as many knobby little pumpkins and gourds that I can fit in decorative arrangements up the stairs and at the entryway. I absolutely love this time of year.     

In 1990, I was in college when the first issue of the Martha Stewart Living quarterly magazine hit the stands. Working two jobs and going to school full-time, I was far from having a home to fluff, seasonally or otherwise. Every gorgeous cover of every single issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine made me yearn to be at a place in my life where I could slow down and enjoy having the kind of home, and the kind of lifestyle, pictured in her magazine.

By 1995, Martha Stewart Living had become an established monthly publication, and I had a job and a home and my own subscription. This was before HGTV or Pinterest or even Google for that matter, and I looked to Martha for everything. From how to arrange my couch pillows to how to grow a garden to what and how to cook, she was my guru. 

No one who knew me the first 25 years of my life would have ever believed I would love fall like I do now, and I give credit to Martha for that, too. Growing up, I was not a fan of fall because of how much I disliked school, which never made sense, really, since I was good at it, always had plenty of friends, was never bullied and had no real issues of any kind ever. But, all the same, I hated it with a passion, and therefore, I hated fall. The back-to-school commercials literally made my stomach ache, and the bright oranges and Burnt Sienna color scheme….spare this beach-loving coastal girl all of it.     

It wasn't until I had graduated twice from college, had a "real job," and my recurring nightmare of walking into class unprepared for an important exam had subsided that Martha helped me see what I had been missing. No longer associating fall with school, I saw the beauty of the season. Once, I fell in love with pumpkins — decorative pumpkins, canned pumpkin, big carving pumpkins — I was all in. 

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I always loved warming spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. I loved gingerbread and cinnamon toast has been a lifelong comfort food, but I don't remember ever buying a can of pumpkin before Martha. I certainly had not made or eaten pumpkin muffins, pumpkin scones or pumpkin pancakes before, and I don't think any of my friends had either. This was long before Starbucks and pumpkin-spice lattes, practically eons before pumpkin-spice took over the world each October.    

I'm not saying that Martha, herself, created those adorable, smaller, more muted-shaded pumpkins, but I never saw anything but big orange ones before she came along. She showed me that fall could be more to my taste with calmer, more inviting autumn hues, rather than having to embrace the country-comes-to-town hay bales, dried corn and scarecrow motif. 

Martha walked me through creating some of the prettiest Jack-o'-lanterns I ever imagined making, using her templates to only remove shallow bits of the pumpkin's outer skin so that elegant shadowy patterns glowed through. Even her Halloween Jack-o'-lanterns were charming and unique. I remember a witch design with a long, skinny carrot for the nose and funny-faced gourd-ghosts with a template to stencil "Boo" on them. I was smitten. 

She brought autumn elegance to the dinner table, and I followed right in step, serving my favorite fall soup out of small, hollowed-out pumpkins and dressing up my caramel apples by using little natural sticks gathered from outside instead of those gauche, uninspired Popsicle sticks I had used pre-Martha. No longer a mere grasshopper. I was killing it as a homemaker.     

Although not a Martha Stewart recipe, these Pumpkin Bars have been on my fall bake-list for at least fifteen years. They are easy and delicious, light and more cake-like than what I associate with a "bar." They fill up the house with the scrumptious aroma of cinnamon and fall spices and come out of the oven a gorgeous, rich shade of brown. Topped with pale cream cheese frosting, the contrasting colors make them so attractive on a serving platter. No one can resist them. They are a great dessert or snack anytime but have also proved to be a big hit on the brunch table as well.

I realize not everything "pumpkin spice" necessarily has pumpkin in it, but people of all ages sure seem to love all the pumpkin baked goods that are prevalent this time of the year in cafes and coffee shops. 

No longer relegated to health food stores and hippies, pumpkin enthusiasm has crossed over to mainstream big time and does not appear to be waning. It's a good thing to have such a healthy ingredient embraced as pumpkin is one of the most nutrient dense fruits on the planet (yes, pumpkins are a fruit). Pumpkins are full of fiber and provide vitamin C, vitamin E, folate, iron, potassium, and beta carotene, which your body converts to vitamin A, so eat up! We definitely are at my house.