Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies
Fall has definitely arrived! With all the delicious soups, chili, and baking with apples and pumpkin, it’s by far the most fun food season. These bars have popped up all over the Internet after showing up in Cara’s blog two years ago. Hubby has been asking for these bars for about two weeks now. With the shortage of canned pumpkin going on right now, I couldn’t make these until now because I just couldn’t find canned pumpkin!
I made these when we had some overnight guests and everyone loved them. We got impatient and cut them after they had cooled for about a hour. They hadn’t been chilled so they were still a bit gooey and warm. They’re delicious at this point and also after they’ve been chilled (the pumpkin flavor really shines once they’ve chilled).
I made a few adjustments to Cara’s recipe. One of the bloggers who made these said she wished there was more of the pumpkin mixture, so I upped that part of the recipe. Cara’s original recipe called for 6 oz of cream cheese and since a block of cream cheese is 8 oz, I just adjusted the other ingredients of the cheesecake portion so that it would use a full block of cream cheese. My adjustments are shown below.
I also don’t tend to think of pumpkin and chocolate together. It seems to me that white chocolate or cream cheese frosting are natural partners with pumpkin. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that dark chocolate would pair with pumpkin better than milk chocolate. So in the brownie portion of these bars, I used some dark cocoa.
Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies
Yield: 16 bars
Ingredients:
For the Brownie Batter
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
For the Cheesecake Batter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp flour
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 tsp pure vanilla
2/3 tsp cinnamon
1/3 tsp ground ginger
1/3 tsp ground cloves
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x8" square metal baking pan.
Beat together melted butter, sugar, and vanilla, then beat in eggs one at a time. Combine dry ingredients and then gradually stir into butter mixture with a wooden spoon. In separate bowl, beat together cheesecake batter ingredients.
Spread about 2/3 of chocolate batter into prepared pan, and spoon cheesecake batter over. Dollop remaining brownie batter over cheesecake batter. Swirl the batters together by running a butter knife back and forth through the pan.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set. Cool completely on wire rack and chill before cutting and serving.
Original Beantown Baker Recipe, inspired by Cara's Cravings
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Ohh I love that it’s an all-natural mint flavor. So much better than the fake stuff.
beantownbaker — July 24th, 2013 @ 12:53 pm
I agree. Hubby likes to give me a hard time by calling me a food snob for trying to avoid fake stuff in everything we eat. I figure, it’s worth the effort. And the name calling 😉
Ohhh, I love mint chocolate chip! Love that you used coconut milk in it!
Yummy 🙂 my mother would love this, mint chip has always been her favorite! Can’t wait to try this recipe!
beantownbaker — July 30th, 2013 @ 5:48 pm
I can’t believe you’re commenting on blogs while at a blogging conference. Overachiever 😛
Love it! This is amazing 🙂
for some reason your blog stopped updating in feedly 🙁 corrected and now to catch up on all the deliciousness! i just made a fresh mint ice cream as well, but i like how you used coconut milk. will be doing that next time 🙂
beantownbaker — August 1st, 2013 @ 3:17 pm
I know – I realized that too. But it’s working again now. Not sure if it was a Feedly issue or something on my end…
Really good! I may have steeped the mint too long.. A little earthy. Will try again!
beantownbaker — August 1st, 2013 @ 3:18 pm
Oh bummer! I’ve never had ice cream that I’d call “earthy”…
Would you consider doing a mint chocolate chip ice cream with goat’s milk? Or do you think the “goaty” would show through too much?
beantownbaker — August 10th, 2013 @ 9:36 am
Interesting idea. I think it would be good. This ice cream was very minty, so I think it would mask the goatiness of the milk.