Monday, September 28, 2009
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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.

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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

Bars and Brownies, Dessert
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10 Responses to “Cookie Dough Chocolate Ice Cream Cupcakes”

  1. #
    1
    Janna — June 2, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    These look awesome!
    Did it take a long time to get the ice cream to freeze?

  2. #
    2
    Jen — June 2, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    Janna,

    I let it set in the ice cream about 30 minutes between each step. I wasn’t in a big hurry and 30 minutes was perfect.

  3. #
    3
    Lisa — June 5, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    I love the last photo, the way the ice cream has so perfectly filled the liner and the way the frosting swirls on top. And that frosting sounds fabulous! I am going to try it on my Chile Variado Cupcakes for an extra spicy combination.

  4. #
    4
    Ivy — June 5, 2008 at 6:34 pm

    This was a REAALLY good idea!
    I love cookie-dough anything. 🙂

  5. #
    5
    Katie — June 7, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    I totally do the mush thing too! In fact, for all my birthdays as I kid I would ask for cake mush, which meant my mom would take my slice of cake and ice cream and mash it up for me with a fork. The amazing thing is that while I would be full after a slice of cake and a scoop of ice cream, I can eat double that when in mush form. Yum!

  6. #
    6
    Jen — June 12, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    That’s awesome Katie – glad I’m not the only cake mush eater out there!

  7. #
    7
    Teanna DiMicco — April 21, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    This is insane! And by insane, I mean TOTALLY AWESOME! COME ON!!!! I am SO making these!

  8. #
    8
    Hillary — April 21, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    What an awesome idea! How do you store them – does the cake part get too cold if you freeze them?

    Hillary
    Chew on That

  9. #
    9
    Cathy - wheresmydamnanswer — April 21, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    These are so incredible – Love them!!!

  10. #
    10
    Jen — April 21, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    Hillary – I kept them in the freezer. It did make the cake part cold, but I’m personally a fan of cold/frozen cake anyways.

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