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. 
Dark chocolate truffles in cookie form? Um, YES!!! I’ll take a dozen for myself and another dozen for later, please.
Wow – these sound good! and I truly do not understand how people can just “not be into chocolate!” It is my favorite!
beantownbaker — May 8th, 2013 @ 8:26 pm
Yea, I really don’t get it either. Oh well, more for me!
Oh wow, chocolate truffle cookies sound divine! These look ridiculously good! Love that they’re salted too!
beantownbaker — May 8th, 2013 @ 8:27 pm
I have been sprinkling salt on all of my cookies recently. It makes them much more adult and less super-sweet.
Yum these look divine!
I’m always in need of a chocolate fix! I have several friends that claim they are not chocolate people, yet I find whenever I make something chocolate + salt, they are all over it!
beantownbaker — May 8th, 2013 @ 8:28 pm
I definitely find that people who claim they aren’t chocolate people rarely say no to any homemade baked goods. Chocolate or otherwise.
Oh my! These look divine 🙂 I’d love to make these babies soon!
these look amazing!! and how thick that batter is 🙂 love the sea salt!
beantownbaker — May 8th, 2013 @ 8:29 pm
The batter was basically ganache. You could have just made truffles from it directly.
I love any and all things dark chocolate. These look so decadent!
I’m curious to find out what blog platform you’re working with?
I’m having some minor security problems with my latest blog and I’d like to find something
more safeguarded. Do you have any suggestions?
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 12:56 pm
I use WordPress
Wow! Those look so perfectly decadent! I’m practically drooling on my screen 😉
Just made these. Worried I didn’t bake them long enough… however they still tasted divine. Waiting to get the verdict from my husband on them.
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 12:11 pm
I think underbaking these sounds like a great idea. I might have to do that next time.
Since I’m trying this recipe for the first time, can I halve the entire recipe?
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 12:12 pm
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I didn’t see this comment until now! I don’t see why you couldn’t make a half batch of these cookies. Did you try it? How did they turn out?
These are the most amazing chocolate cookies I have ever made. Everyone with whom I have shared them have gone absolutly nuts and want the recipe. I do not wet my hands when rolling the cookies into balls—too messy. I just let my hands get sticky and rinse and dry them after making several balls. This is one of the best recipes on Pinterest.
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 12:13 pm
Thanks for the kind words! So glad you enjoy these cookies. I was wondering if getting my hands wet actually helped with the messiness very much. Next time I’ll be sure to just go at it without dealing with the water.
Hey! I tried halving the recipe…but it melted while in the oven. Became runny & all of them just stuck together 🙁
I tried just one batch. Anything I can do to fix the remaining batter?
beantownbaker — June 18th, 2013 @ 4:01 pm
Interesting… How did you account for half of an egg? And is your baking powder past it’s expiration date?
Ohh! Looks like I’ve added a lil too much egg. Damn! Any way I can fix the batter? Add more flour perhaps? Plz help!
beantownbaker — June 19th, 2013 @ 7:12 am
I’d add a little more flour to see if you can balance out the extra amount of egg in there.
I added 1/4 cup more flour & a teensy bit of baking powder to my messed up batter & they came out wonderfully! They’re so gooey & yumm that my husband & son (who never eats chocolate!) finished six cookies at one go!
Amazing recipe!! Thank you so much for your help, I appreciate it !
beantownbaker — June 20th, 2013 @ 7:00 am
Oh GOOD! So glad you were able to make them work. Aren’t they divine?
U bet! They are sinfully delicious! Sent some in my son’s snack pack & I have mommies calling for these cookies!
I’m officially ur No.1 fan now! 🙂
beantownbaker — June 20th, 2013 @ 7:18 am
Aww Thanks! 🙂
Hi, I was wondering if I could put them in the freezer instead of the fridge for a shorter period of time? If so, how long should I put them in the freezer for instead of the fridge?
beantownbaker — June 27th, 2013 @ 8:06 am
Hm. You could definitely try it. I would think it’s still going to need an hour or so in the freezer since you want it to set up pretty well. Let me know how it turns out if you do.