Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

October is here! It's time to bust out your orange Kitchenaid mixer (for real though, does anyone own an orange Kitchenaid mixer?!), get yourself some canned pumpkin, whip up some pumpkin pie spice (or buy it), and get to town on your favorite pumpkin recipes. I have made quite a few different pumpkin recipes over the years, with some of my favorite go-tos of the season including the classic Pumpkin Pie Cake, to the Pumpkin Coffee Cake, to some Soft Pumpkin Cookies, but I think this new one is a great addition to the repeat repertoire.

Today, we have Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars. To be honest, they taste very similar to your typical pumpkin pie, with just a slightly extra tang from the cream cheese that also gives it a very luscious creamy texture that is in many ways better than a typical pumpkin pie. 

And, if you know me, you know I love something that doesn't require me to make a pie dough. I don't know what it is about your traditional pie dough, but anytime I think about making one, I am like "ugh." This may be to do with the fact that I don't own a very good rolling pin, so it always feels like a major hassle to roll out a pie dough to the proper thickness. So, these? Require no rolling. It has a nice, simple graham cracker crust that you liven up with some ground ginger that will smell way more potent before baking than it actually turns out. 

As a heads up, this recipe does require some things to be softened or at room temperature. What I recommend is to take out your cream cheese and your eggs right when you're going to start up everything. As there are some substantial cooling times, your cream cheese and eggs will be ready once your pumpkin mixture and your crust have cooled. 

But what are you waiting for? If you like pumpkin pie, and you like cheesecake, this recipe is right up your alley!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 24
Prep time: 00:15
Cook time: 01:00
Total time: 06:15

A little something different than your typical pumpkin pie in easy-to-make bar form.

Ingredients:

• 1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened pumpkin puree
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 15 whole graham crackers, broken into 1-inch pieces
• and so on...
• 1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) and 1 1/3 cups (9 1/3 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, room temperature

Instructions:

1. Combine pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, and salt in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat for 6-8 minutes, until it is reduced to approximately 1 1/2 cups. Cool for 1 hour.
2. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 325F. Either grease your pan, or make a foil sling, place it in your pan, and grease that. I never do the foil sling as I'm not taking these out to serve individually.
3. Process graham crackers, 1/4 cup sugar, and ginger in food processor to fine crumbs, about 15 seconds. Add butter and pulse until combined, about 5 pulses. Dump mixture into your prepared pan and press down into an even layer. Bake for 15-18 minutes until just starting to brown. Let crust cool completely on wire rack.
4. Beat your cream cheese and remaining sugar on medium-low speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add lemon juice, vanilla, and pumpkin mixture and beat until combined. Increase speed to medium and add eggs, one at a time, and beat until incorporated. Pour over the cooled crust and spread into an even layer. Bake until edges are slightly puffed and center is set, 45-50 minutes. Let cheese cake cool on a wire rack for 2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap (or the lid if you have one for your pan), and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours. If using the foil overhang, life cheesecake out of the pan and slice into 24 pieces.

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated

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Strawberry Cheesecake Bars

I know I just made another strawberry recipe, but what can I say, when you want strawberries, you want strawberries. Plus, they're in season, so can you really go wrong when you have delicious fresh strawberries that are naturally sweet? Nope. 

What can be a problem, though? When there aren't any graham crackers at the store due to the pandemic. Well, let's be honest, they had cinnamon graham crackers, but I didn't think that would go well with strawberry cheesecake. Solution? Make your own! If you're lucky enough to already have some whole wheat flour at home, anyway. Which I did. So I did. And? They tasted like graham crackers! Amazing. Did I notice a difference by making them homemade vs store bought in the cheesecake? No. So please don't feel like you need to do that if you can find them at the store. But, I've included the recipe below in case you want to go that extra mile.

Now, I've made this recipe before, but it was during that time when I was feeling too busy to post things to the blog (recipes seem to take the longest because of formatting blah blah). So, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to make this again. The original recipe will tell you to do this complicated foil hang thing in your 9x13 pan to easily take out the whole thing later on. That's really only if you're going to cut these into separate pieces to serve all at once, so I don't bother with it since we just keep it in the fridge and eat it over time, and you can just slice out an individual piece as you go. That means you also don't need to add the strawberry pieces on top, but if you're taking these somewhere, it certainly does make them more fancy schmancy.

 

Strawberry Cheesecake Bars
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 24 squares
Prep time: 00:20
Cook time: 01:20
Total time: 08:40

If you like strawberries and you like cheesecake, this is a no-fuss way to combine the two into a delicious bar version, no spring-form pan required.

Ingredients:

Crust:
• 9 whole graham crackers, broken into pieces (see below to make these homemade)
• ½ cup (3.5 ounces) granulated sugar
• ¾ cup (3.75 ounces) all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Filling:
• 1 ½ pounds cream cheese (3 8 ounce blocks)
• 1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Topping:
• 6 ounces strawberries, hulled (1 heaping cup), plus 5 hulled strawberries
• ½ cup (3.5 ounces) plus 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 cups sour cream
For Homemade Graham Crackers:
• 1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
• 1 cup (4.25 ounces) all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup (1.75 ounces) granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup (1.75 ounces) vegetable oil
• ¼ cup (3 ounces) honey
• 2 to 3 Tablespoons milk

Instructions:

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. FOR THE CRUST: Process cracker pieces (see below if making from scratch) and sugar in food processor until finely ground, about 30 seconds. Add flour and salt and pulse to combine, about 2 pulses. Add melted butter and pulse until crumbs are evenly moistened, about 10 pulses.
3. Using your hands, press crumb mixture evenly into bottom of prepared pan. Using bottom of dry measuring cup, firmly pack crust into 9x13 pan. Bake until fragrant and beginning to brown around edges, about 20 minutes. Let cool completely. This will likely take about an hour.
4. FOR THE FILLING: In clean, dry processor bowl, process cream cheese and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. With processor running, add eggs, one at a time, until just incorporated, about 30 seconds total. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add vanilla and process to combine, about 10 seconds. Pour cream cheese mixture over cooled crust. Bake until center is almost set but still jiggles slightly when pan is shaken, about 45 minutes.
5. FOR THE TOPPING: Meanwhile, in clean, dry processor bowl, process 6 ounces strawberries and ½ cup sugar until pureed, about 30 seconds. Stir strawberry puree and sour cream in bowl until combined.
6. Remove cheesecake from oven. Pour strawberry mixture over cheesecake (cheesecake layer should be completely covered). Return pan to oven and bake until topping is just set, about 15 minutes.
7. Transfer pan to wire rack and let cheesecake cool completely, about 2 hours. Refrigerate until cold and set, at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours. Slice remaining 5 strawberries thin and gently toss with remaining 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl. Garnish with 1 strawberry slice per 2 inches and serve.


For Homemade Graham Crackers:
8. Combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl.
9. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg with the oil, honey, and 2 tablespoons milk. Stir this egg mixture into the dry ingredients until you have a fairly stiff dough, adding more milk if necessary. Knead the dough gently until smooth.
10. Wrap the dough and chill it until firm, about 1 hour (or longer, if it's more convenient).
11. Adjust oven racks to upper middle and lower middle positions and heat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
12. Divide the dough in half and, working with one piece at a time, roll the dough out about 1/16" thick onto a piece of parchment paper. Tip: place another piece of parchment paper on top of your rolling pin to prevent sticking.
13. Transfer the rolled-out dough on the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Repeat with the second piece of dough.
14. Bake the sheets of dough for 10 minutes, one each on the upper middle and lower middle racks, rotating the pans after 5 minutes.
15. Remove pans from the oven and use a rolling pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut the sheets of dough into 3" x 2" rectangles; don't separate them, just cut them.
16. Return the cut crackers to the oven, and continue to bake for 18 to 20 minutes.
17. Turn off the oven, and open the oven door wide for 5 minutes. After the majority of the oven's heat has dissipated, shut the oven door, and let it cool down for 20 minutes with the crackers inside; this will help them become as crisp as possible.
18. Remove the crackers from the oven, transfer them to a cooling rack, and cool completely.
19. Store the crackers, well-wrapped, at room temperature for up to a week; freeze for longer storage. This will make about double the amount needed for the Cheesecake recipe.

Cheesecake Recipe from Cook's Country / Graham Cracker Recipe from King Arthur Flour

Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding

Some years ago, my grandma started bringing a banana pudding to family events that was so tasty, I couldn't wait to eat it any time we all got together. Now, I'm not sure this Paula Deen recipe is the actual recipe she used, but considering it looks the same, uses the Chessmen cookies that she always did, and was published back around 2004, I have to assume it is.

But wait, you say, your pictures here aren't using Chessmen cookies, what are you talking about? Well, yes. It's true. I don't typically shop at your "regular" grocery store that carries Pepperidge Farm cookies, so I had to go with what they had at Whole Foods, which are some slightly thicker and rounder shortbread cookies. Which do I recommend? I'd go with the rectangular, thinner cookies like the Chessmen. They will cover the pan better, so you are sure to get a cookie in every bite.

The original recipe also calls for using something like Cool Whip as well, and instead I got some heavy whipping cream and whipped it up. I didn't add any sugar to it, because I don't think you really need it. Her recipe also calls for one 5 ounce box of pudding mix, and it's much easier to find 3.6 ounce boxes, so I used two of those instead. I didn't change the amount of milk to account for the extra -- and why wouldn't I, you wonder? Well, whipped cream isn't as thick as cool whip, so I figured the extra thickness from the pudding would make up for that. I've provided the version I made below in case you are in a similar boat with ingredients.

Is this recipe healthy? No. No way. It's very rich, but very delicious. I mean, if you used the Cool Whip and light cream cheese (which I did use here), then you could cut the fat back a bit, but this is definitely a decadent-tasting dessert.

Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 24
Prep time: 00:30

Cook time: 00:00

Total time: 00:30

Adapted from Paula Deen's take on Banana Pudding.

Ingredients:

• 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 12 ounces heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
• 2 7-8 ounce packages shortbread cookies (a la Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies)
• 6 to 8 bananas, sliced
• 2 cups milk
• 2 3.6 ounce packages instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened

Instructions:

1. Line the bottom of a 13 by 9 by 2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.
2. In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer or whisk.
3. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth.
4. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended.
5. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

I know what you're thinking. Another pumpkin thing? But the holidays have passed! I mean, I know. I meant to post this much earlier, but things such as life and work and vacation kind of got in the way. Or I got lazy. You never know with me.

And maybe you didn't get enough pumpkin stuff over the holidays. It's still cold and wintry out, you can still enjoy yourself some winter-spiced stuff, such as these pumpkin pie bars. Or not. Whatever suits you.

I made these bars for a work dessert potluck of sorts. I only have one quibble with them, and that is this: the bottom crust part was really, really hard to cut up. I'm not sure if it's because I should have cut them up earlier on and not after leaving it in the fridge overnight or not. It's entirely possible that is the case! Nonetheless, they were still tasty, tasty treats. Maybe not if you don't like pecans, but I imagine you could totally take out the pecans and you'd still have a winner.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Ingredients

• FOR THE CRUST:
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• FOR THE FILLING:
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 9 roasted pecan halves, for topping

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F with a rack in the center. Grease an 8x8 inch square pan with butter or shortening. Line with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt and oats. Add cold butter and quickly break the butter up into the dry ingredients. You can use a pastry cutter or use your hands to get the butter into sizes variously the size of peas to oat flakes. Add the chopped pecans and toss thoroughly to combine.
3. Remove about 1 1/2 (to 2 cups) of the mixture to a separate bowl and place in the refrigerator (this will be the crumble topping).
4. Put the remaining crust mixture into your prepared pan and, using your fingers, evenly press into the bottom of the pan. Place this in the fridge while you prepare the filling.
5. For the filling, place the softened cream cheese into your electric mixer and beat at medium speed about a minute until smooth and pliable. You don't want chunky cream cheese here.
6. Add in the pumpkin and sugar and beat on medium speed. You may need to stop the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is combined well. Add in the egg and egg white and beat to combine, about 1 minute. Add in the spices, salt and vanilla and beat to combine again. The original recipe also calls for 1/8 tsp all spice, but I didn't have any. Feel free to add it in for an extra spiciness.
7. Remove your crust and crust crumbs from the fridge. Pour the pumpkin filling over the pressed crust and then sprinkle generously with your remaining crumbs. Top that with your pecan halves. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the center no longer gets jiggly when you move it. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before removing from the pan and slicing.
8. These are best kept in the fridge since they have cream cheese in them, for up to four days.

Recipe via Joy the Baker

In photos:

Whoops. This picture is blurry. Sorry! It's just the dry ingredients about to get mixed up with some cold butter.

Once you've got your crust stuff, remove 1 1/2 to 2 cups to the fridge. The rest, press into your pan like so, then stick that in the fridge too.

The cream cheese, pumpkin and sugar mix together.

And then you add in your egg, egg white and spices.

Dump your pumpkin stuff on top of your prepared pan of pressed crumble, and then sprinkle the rest of that crumble on top.

Add your roasted pecans (I didn't roast mine, whoops!) for pretty decoration, and then bake that baby up.

Since the top does not really brown, you want to make sure the middle of the pan doesn't jiggle anymore before you take this out of the oven. Otherwise you will have a goopy middle section. No one wants a goopy middle section, in baked goods or in life.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah. Oh wait. I'm supposed to be writing something fun and exciting and cool and blogger-y here, not just going with my dummy text! Yes, all of my dummy text in any form of writing consists of some form of "blah blah." "Blah blah exploring description blah," "Blah blah something happens here blah de blah." You know, inspiring stuff.

That said, this pound cake is actually inspiring. Well. Inspiring may be too strong a word for something like pound cake, but hey, we're gonna go with it. GO! WITH! IT!

Can I share something kinda weird? I was eating some of this the other day, and decided I wanted to toast it and put some butter on it, just to see. I thought to myself, is this pound cake blasphemy of sorts? And then my next thought, literally, was, "It's my pound cake, I'll do what I want!"

Yes. I have to justify things like eating food "weirdly" for myself. I don't know. Don't try to figure it out. Also? The toasted and buttered? Was pretty good. So there!

Anyway. Yes. Cream Cheese Pound Cake. It's moist, it's yummy, you can eat it for a breakfast or a dessert, particularly a dessert if you put some fruity or chocolatey stuff on top. But hey, it's perfectly yummy on its own as well. It's versatile! Also, it turned out exactly how it was supposed to, which does not always happen with bread-ish type things for me, when oftentimes they can turn out sort of dry even when I follow the recipe. Not here! This recipe is legit. And should I expect anything less from Joy the Baker? No. No I should not. I finally got her cookbook recently, and you should expect to see many more recipes from it in the future, I'm sure!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven at 325F, making sure a rack is in the center. Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan for later.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside for a bit.
3. Either in your stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat cream cheese until soft and pliable. Add butter and sugar and beat until fluffy, approx 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and stir until blended, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating at medium for 1 minute each.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly add in the flour mixture from earlier and beat until just incorporated. Stop your mixer at that point and fold together the batter with a spatula.
5. Spoon into your prepared pan from earlier and bake for 30 minutes. After that, rotate the cake, and if it's browning too quickly, move to an upper rack (I did not have this problem).
6. Bake for another 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. It should last for up to 4 days at room temperature, well wrapped.

(Recipe via Joy the Baker Cookbook)

In photos:

The dry ingredients get whisked together.

Beat that softened cream cheese until it's smooth.

Add in the butter and sugar. You'll likely need to scrape down the sides of your bowl quite a bit.

After adding in the eggs and vanilla.

And finally, after that flour mixture has been beaten and folded in.

Bake it up, and here's how it should look out of the oven!

Let it cool in the pan, then on a wire rack. Cut it up. Enjoy. Wrap in foil (or whatever you prefer!) to keep it fresh.

Moist and delicious! You see those extra moist bits in the middle? My favorite part.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

You know what's funny? This is the first time I'm posting a cupcake recipe! That seems crazy. But it turns out I've just made muffins up until this point. Weird.

But the time has come! I was up home in Portland this past week and was put in charge of making "some kind of cake or dessert" for a family/birthday get together thing. Having never made red velvet anything before, it seemed the perfect opportunity!

Because everyone loves red velvet. It's sort of a thing right now, you know? Not too chocolately, but not totally vanilla. A crowd pleaser, it is.

But can I tell you something about how frosting these things went? My mom and I, it turns out, have never used a frosting bag with the tip thing before. Attempts to make swirly big poofy tops with it went, let's just say, less than great. We'll blame it on the tip size being too small. Because that's just better than blaming it on ourselves, right?

So the cupcakes you are seeing here are the ones we just did with a frosting knife. I could've shown you how the others turned out, but... it's kind of embarrassing. Right, Mom?

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 ounces red food coloring

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
3. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together with another wire whisk.
4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
5. Pour into prepared muffin pans. Should make two dozen.
6. Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until you stick a skewer in the center and it comes out clean. Let sit for ten minutes and remove to a cooling rack to cool completely before you get to the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 8 ounces cream cheese, cold
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 2/3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Cooking Directions

1. Beat the powdered sugar and butter together in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-slow speed until it comes together and is well mixed.
2. Add the cream cheese all at once and beat on medium to medium-high until incorporated.
3. Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes, or until the frosting becomes light and fluffy. Do not over-beat as the frosting can quickly become runny.

In photos:

 Liquids before the food coloring.

And after! Oh my! How red! But I will have you know, I didn't use the whole amount of food coloring the recipe calls for. We didn't have enough!

The dry ingredients all whisked together.

Wet added into the dry. Yours would be redder if you had the right amount of food coloring, keep in mind!

 Into the muffin pans!

And out of the oven. You see, not so red now. But it's okay, they get covered with frosting anyway.

The powdered sugar and butter mixed up. Secret: I forgot to sift the powdered sugar! Whoops!

Frosting! This is only half of it. I wasn't sure I was going to need the whole amount, then it turned out I did, so we ended up with twice as much as in this photo.

Such a patriotic little cupcake.

Top shot.

Who can resist a red velvet cupcake anyway? Only crazy people.