This sugar-free pumpkin bar with cheesecake frosting recipe is the best you'll find for sugar-free baking during the holidays. Our favorite foodie, Annie Siegfried, RDT combined low-carb ingredients like pure pumpkin puree, almond flour, and our Monk Fruit sweetener to make this easy pumpkin spice bar recipe without sugar. You could add a scoop of your favorite protein powder to make your own healthy homemade pumpkin protein bars, too!
How to make a sugar-free dessert?
Most traditional dessert recipes use sugar as the main sweetener, but there are healthy sweet alternatives to sugar that are easy to use! NuNaturals Monk Fruit Sweetener with Erythritol is a zero-calorie sweetener that tastes and looks like sugar. In fact, you can measure and bake with it it just like sugar.
Trying to eat less sugar can be daunting, and over the holidays it's even harder! Annie Siegfried, RDT added pure pumpkin puree with our Monk Fruit and Erythritol Sweeter to lighten up a classic dessert.
Ingredients
Bars
1 cup (2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
1 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup almond flour
1/2 tsp NuNaturals Pumpkin Spice Syrup
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup pure pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cup NuNaturals Monk Fruit 1:1 Sweetener
Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-by-12-inch cake pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides
Melt 1/2 stick butter in a saucepan over medium heat, and cook until it turns toasty-brown in color and smells nutty, frequently stirring and scraping up any bits from the bottom so they don’t burn. Immediately remove from heat and transfer brown butter to a heat-proof bowl or liquid measuring cup. Set aside to cool while prepping other ingredients.
Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, milk, and Pumpkin Spice Syrup, set aside.
Beat Monk Fruit Sweetener and 1/2 cup butter together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, the 1/2 stick browned butter and beat until combined. On low speed, add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of pumpkin mixture, and beating until just combined after each.
Pour batter into prepared pan, smooth top with spatula. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 35 minutes.
Beat cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, and a pinch of salt until light and creamy, 2 minutes. Reduce mixer to low. Gradually add the sweetener, beating until incorporated. Once bars are cooled, spread the frosting and refrigerate.
