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. 
I can’t barely bake so the idea of finding a creative way to use leftovers astounds me. This looks AWESOME!
Gorgeous truffles!
I love red velvet… these look amazing.
I’ll have to remember this… I often have leftover cake too. They looks so pretty!
This is a very good recipe…thanks and happy new year, ciao Flavia
These are so pretty! Great for valentine’s day:)
These look so wonderful! Love the vibrant red!
These look so good. Wonderful idea.
Okay this is just hilarious! My grandma purchased a frozen Cheesecake Factory Red Velvet Cheesecake for Christmas. I took the remaining pieces home to make into balls, which we served at my new years eve party. SO good!
Amazing as usual! I tagged you on my blog to answer some questions:
http://bigmamashomekitchen.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-weekday-morning-routineand-ive-been.html
Have a great day! Rhondi
you are a genius! Such a great idea to use leftover and maintain portion control.
oh they look so yummi!!!
xoxo from rome
K.
http://kcomekarolina.blogspot.com/
Such a good idea, these look so good! I love the red velvet and cheesecake combo. You’re blog is awesome 🙂
Wow, these are so beautiful! Best way to use leftovers EVER! And who knew you could do so much with red velvet!
Sues
It’s not over-indulging because you’re able to stop at one. I would probably have eaten half a dozen of them, they look so good! What a great way to jazz up ‘leftovers’!
What a FANTASTIC idea!!!! These look beyond amazing!!
I remember the post about that cake. I really want to make it some day! The idea of turning some leftovers into truffles is pure genius! 😀
ooh, what a creative way to deal with the cake 🙂
I’m picky about what I bring in to work too. It bugs me when people bring in things that are clearly gnawed on, you know? This is the perfect way to reportion leftover cake into easily sharable treats.
Wives always know best! LOL
Glad you made him “eat” his words, so to speak. The truffles are so adorable and perfect for Valentine’s Day.
They’re adorable!!! They’d make a perfect Valentine treat too!!
So…. Don’t mean to appear ignorant, but some of us have NOT made cake balls from left over cake, please be more specific in your discourse, please.
ummm this cake failed. We followed the recipe to the t and it deflated and tasted bad. This recipe was extremely watery and gross and soggy. It fell apart quickly. Thanks!