I’ll have you know, that I’ve now posted six consecutive recipes without pumpkin, which in the middle of fall is just plain rude. I am sorry. You know, we were just getting started and I didn’t want to be too needy with the pumpkin and force it on you, but as is the case with my life, I played it too cool and here we are, well into November without a pumpkin recipe. Fall is out there wondering “is she even interested in me anymore?” Oh Fall, of course I am! I just didn’t want to scare you off and risk early winter. Hug it out?
Eating Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies are as good as a hug. Like a hug for your stomach. I get requests for this recipe a lot, probably because it involves the three basic food groups: brownies, pumpkin and cheesecake. Okay, you’re right — there are way more than three basic food groups. Let’s not forget chocolate, ice cream, peanut butter and cake. And it’s not so much a pyramid as a heptagon. Google it.
Now that we hugged our heptagon, can we have a little girl talk? Share a little secret? …. I don’t like cheesecake. I know this forsakes my dairy state upbringing, but I’m sorry, cheesecake doesn’t do anything for me. You will never find a straight up cheesecake recipe on this blog. I don’t really like plain cream cheese on a bagel or such, so that might explain why. I do, however, like cream cheese icing and baked goods with small amounts of cream cheese baked in. So thus, if you partner it with pumpkin — the love of my life — and put it in a brownie, odds are I will not be sharing a slice with you – get your own.
I warn you, there are quite a few steps, bowls, spatulas, spoons, needed for this recipe and you need to make sure you have the cream cheese softened ahead of time, but it is so worth the work. The recipe calls for a 9×9 pan, but it always seems like way too much for a pan that size, though not enough for a 9×13. To compromise, I fill the 9×9 as high as I feel comfortable with and then use the leftovers to make bite-size Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies in a mini-muffin pan (if you’re super talented with a spoon and toothpick you can even get the cheesecake part to be pumpkin shaped). I think you could also make a “half-pan” using a bread loaf pan.
Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies
From The Daily Cookie
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling:
12 oz cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons brown sugar (dark or light)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1 large egg plus 2 tablespoons beaten egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (if you don’t have it, make it)
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
Brownie Batter:
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon plus a tiny pinch of salt
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 oz bittersweet chocolate chips (1 ½ cups), melted and cooled
1 cup (4.5 oz) Flour
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 inch square pan with foil and spray foil with cooking spray.
Make the filling first. Beat the cream cheese and both sugars together with a mixer, then reduce speed and beat in the pumpkin, egg, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice. Stir in the flour until just combined. Set aside.
In a second bowl, beat the butter, salt and sugar until creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the melted chocolate chips then stir in the flour. Pour all but about 3/4 cup of the chocolate mixture into the pan.
Spoon the pumpkin mixture evenly over the brownies layer.
Drop reserved brownie batter over pumpkin to give the brownies a splotched, marbled look.
Bake on center rack at 350 for 45-50 minutes or until brownies test done. That is, when a skewer inserted into the brownie portion comes out clean. Let cool for about two hours or overnight at room temperature (they will be mushy and not fun if you try to serve them too soon). Lift from pan and cut into squares.
Adventures of a Hungry Redhead 
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