Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie Bars

October through December, with November being the heavy-hitter month for pumpkin, it surely is a seasonal 'fruit'. Yes, fruit, with all of its seeds, which we all know are great for toasting!

I wanted to try something a little different this year other than the traditional pumpkin pie. I needed to bake one gluten-free pie, so to make things a little easier on myself and to test a new recipe, I thought I would share this one with you, too. I was thinking something between a cheesecake and a pumpkin pie, or a slab pie. What I came up with was a gluten free pumpkin cheesecake bar pie. Baked in a 9 x 13 inch-pan, it's a little lighter and creamier than pumpkin pie with all of the great spice flavor.

As for the crust, instead of preparing a traditional GF crust, I found gluten-free ginger cookies at Trader Joe's, which worked out great! With all of the sugar & spice in the cookies, I was able to scale back in the filling. Not to mention, it was a super-easy alternative. Just process the cookies in a food processor to create the fine crumbs. If you don't have a food processor, place the cookies (do 1/3 at a time) in a zipper bag, zip out all air, and crush with a rolling pin until finely crushed.

Gluten-free cooking and baking has become so much easier these days with products much more readily available. I can tell you that they liked it - it's ALL gone 🙂