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. 
Cute idea and they look so easy to make. Must try.
And the stick makes them perfect for milk dipping.
oh my…i’ve tried my hand at these and just about every oreo ended up cracking when i tried to insert the stick. *frowny face* not even dipping the sticks first seemed to help? do you have any suggestions on how to slide them in without any hiccups. *wink*
thank you SO much for your help…yours came out adorable!
Wow, these are such a great favor idea! They look easy, but impressive (and delicious)!
Sues
I am loving all of these new parents/new baby posts, because friends of ours just had a baby boy last week and I can just do everything you’re doing! 🙂
Jess@pen – are you using Double Stuffed Oreos? If you’re using regular Oreos, maybe the center isn’t thick enough to support the lollipop stick between the cookie ends. Or maybe the lollipop stick isn’t thin enough (do they even make different sizes?). Just thinking out loud. Good luck. 🙂
jen@pen – I agree with Sarah, be sure to use double stuff Oreos and thin sticks. You’ll notice that the craft store has at least two thicknesses of sticks. You want the thinnest ones. I did slide the sticks in slowly but didn’t have any issues with breaking cookies.
Why must this kind of thing be posted when I’m trying to lose weight? 😉
YUM! I love the idea of doing the initial on them!
Kim @ http://frostmeblog.blogspot.com
party inspiration
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Awesome post.
How far ahead can you make these and will the Oreo get soggy ?
beantownbaker — February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:45 pm
We made them a week in advance and the Oreos did not get soggy.
I can totally see the hiccups @jess, the Double Stuf Oreos have a far more thin and brittle cookie than the original Oreos. They crumble, split and crack very easily, I would imagine irregardless of stuffing volume, the structural integrity of the original Oreo cookie would hold up better for this project.
Can u freeze them?
Hi just wanted to say I have made these every year since 2009 when you posted them, still love them just as much!