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. 
How awesome that you were on Leno! Are we allowed to ask what you were on for? I love your list and am raising two hands to vote for the Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake. I made it last fall (http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2008/10/11/brownie-mosaic-cheesecake/) and it is simply to die for. You won’t be sorry!!
Um yeah, totally meant Letterman. ::slaps forehead:: I’m sleepy 😉
What a cool blog event! I wish I had known about it before today, so I could participate. Is it a monthly thing? If so, I’m definitely in next time!
Michelle – I was the co-captain of a Rube Goldberg team (think of the game mouse trap but on a HUGE scale) in college. In 2003, Purdue won the national competition and they got us on the Letterman show. I was the “spokesperson” for the team and we had our machine on stage. It was an awesome experience. I’ve been trying to find pictures, but that was pre-digital camera for me so I can’t find any…
Annie – I believe it is a monthly event. I think she started it in May…
Thanks for the link to my site! I hope you try out the Chocolate Goat Cheese Truffles if you are a goat cheese fan. They were so delish.
yay for the best bookmarks ever! we have similar taste i guess bc i got some great ideas from this post and i’ve done some on your list. two quick notes on these bookmarks:
1) do the bagels at smitten kitchen. the cinna. raisin rock and it’s so rewarding to spend that much time and yield awesome results. i’m a new baker and it wasn’t very hard to do. definitely add the maple syrup or molasses to the water when you boil the bagels. dole makes plump raisins and they rock.
2) billy’s cupcakes will be your answer to vanilla cupcakes forever! i had issues with overflow so i’d reduce the baking powder from 3t (=1T) to 2.5 tsp.
Thanks for the tips Sweetie
OMG thanks for the shout-out!!! 🙂 where the HECK have i been!?? i’ve seen your facebook status updates and i never realized they were from YOUR blog!!! they are awesome! i’m SO proud of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! talk soon!!! love, WALKER
ps: i have some pics, i’ll get them scanned. 🙂