Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Bars

After making this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, I found myself with a lot of leftover pumpkin. For some reason I bought the big can of pumpkin, and now I needed to use it up. Pumpkin’s not my favorite, but I’m starting to like it more and more. I like the cinnamon and other flavors usually associated with pumpkin, so I’ve been trying new things.

I have wanted to make a cheesecake bar of some sort, and I knew I could find a pumpkin cheesecake bar. There are many different recipes out on the web, some more cheesecake-like than others, but I settled on this one. It’s beautifully simple: no crust, no multiple layers of topping. This recipe is just the batter with a bit of cream cheese swirl. I’ve made a number of recipes from the Cookie Madness blog and I’ve always had good results.

The original recipe calls for a 10 x 15 inch pan, which I don’t have. I did make it in a 9 x 13 pan, which the recipe said I could do. I did end up baking the bars for 35 minutes, which is 5 minutes more than the original recipe. I refrigerated these for a couple hours before cutting, which I think helped. These bars are very cake-like, so they cut super easily. (My husband kept asking when I was going to cut the cake!) I ended up using a serrated knife so that the bars wouldn’t tear too much. I really like the flavor and texture of these. They are kind of like banana bread, but the cream cheese adds a nice richness. I think I am beginning to come around to liking pumpkin.

6 tablespoons melted butter
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup water
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with foil and spray the foil with cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine butter and sugar. Stir to combine. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin, and water, stirring until well blended, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together; stir into batter. Reserve a few tablespoons of batter; spread the remaining batter evenly in prepared pan.

In another mixer bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add egg and beat just until mixed. Drop tablespoons of cheese mixture over pumpkin batter then drop reserved pumpkin batter over top. Drag a knife through the batters to make it swirled.

Bake until pumpkin batter springs back when touched, about 35 minutes. Let cool completely in pan, then chill for an hour or more. Grab the foil and lift the bars out of the pan; peel away the foil. Cut into bars with a serrated knife.

Recipe from Cookie Madness