While Thanksgiving may have come and gone, I'm not ready to let go of pumpkin-flavored things. In fact, I'm down to one can and I think I better stock up before they go completely missing from the stores! I brought these particular pumpkin bars to work last week for my current manager's birthday. Her husband, whom I also work with, told me she likes pumpkin and cheesecake, so I thought this would be a good combination. While these bars were wonderful, the cheesecake flavored didn't come through as much as I would have liked. Even so, these had a great creamy texture and the nutty crust was amazing! These sort of reminded me of this pumpkin dessert and I'm not really sure which I like better....you definitely can't go wrong with either.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Spice Bars
from Cookie Madness (AMAZING dessert blog)
Ingredients
Crust & Topping:
-1 cup flour
-1/3 cup brown sugar, packed tightly
-1/8 tsp salt
-5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
-1/2 cup finely chopped, toasted pecans
Filling:
-8 oz. cream cheese, softened
-3/4 cup granulated sugar
-1/2 cup canned pumpkin (I used slightly more because it was left from another pumpkin dessert I'll be posting!)
-1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tsp allspice
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-2 lightly beaten eggs
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 inch square pan with non-stick aluminum foil.
2. In a mixing bowl or food processor, combine flour, brown sugar, and salt. Add butter and cut or pulse until mixture is crumbly. Stir in pecans.
3. Reserve 3/4 cup of the mixture for topping. Press the remainder of the mixture into the pan.
4. Bake for 13-15 minutes.
5. In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla.
6. STIR, do not beat, in the eggs.
7. Pour the filling over the baked crust and sprinkle with reserved topping.
8. Bake for an additional 30 minutes, or until top is brown.
9. Cool completely on a wire rack. Lift foil out of pan and cut bars. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
