Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
These swirled pumpkin cheesecake bars have a spice filled pumpkin - cream cheese mixture with blobs of sweet cream cheese mixture swirled around in the top.
Ingredients
For the crust
- 2½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup ice cold water
For the pumpkin spice mixture and cream cheese swirls
- 1½ cup cream cheese, divided
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 tbsp all purpose flour
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground clove
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 whole eggs
- 2 cups pumpkin puree
- 1 tbsp cream
Instructions
To make the crust
- In a mixing bowl or a food processor, add all purpose flour, sugar and salt and whisk well.
- Add cold, cubed unsalted butter in incorporate it with the flour mixture with a pastry cutter of a food processor until it resembles a coarse mixture.
- Add cold water and knead to form a dough.
- Divide the dough into two and wrap each with a cling film and refrigerate for two hours before using it.
- Let the dough thaw at room temperature just for a few minutes to make it easier to roll. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about ⅛ inch thick.
- Place this rolled out dough into the prepared baking dish and press it. Pre-heat an oven at 350 degrees and bake the crust for 45 minutes. Cool completely before using the crust.
To make the pumpkin spice mix
- Pre-heat an oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, add cream cheese, sugar and all purpose flour. Beat until smooth.
- Reserve ½ cup of the above mixture for the cheesecake swirls and to the rest, add all the ground spice and vanilla extract and beat until just combined.
- Add the eggs to the cream cheese mixture.
- Add the pumpkin puree to the cream cheese mixture and beat everything until combined. While doing so, scrape down the sides and mix well to make sure the mixture is evenly mixed.
- To the reserved cream cheese mixture, add the cream and mix well.
- Pour the pumpkin spice mixture into the prepared baking dish and add random blobs of the cream cheese mixture to the pumpkin spice mixture.
- With the help of a sharp knife or a skewer, cut through the cream cheese and pumpkin mixture without taking out the knife until it forms a design.
- Bake for 30 - 45 minutes or until it is set. Cool for 30 minutes at room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours. Then cut the cold cheesecake into squares.
- Serve chilled.
Notes
- Bake in a square or rectangular dish to make it easier for you to cut and serve.
- You can make cookie crust or even shortbread crust instead of the pie crust.
- For cookie crust, just add some melted butter and sugar to cookie crumbs. Press this into the baking dish and pre-bake for a few minutes.
- For the shortbread crust, add some cold unsalted butter and sugar to all purpose flour. Using a food processor or pastry cutter, incorporate this butter into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. Then, press into baking dish and pre-bake for 20 minutes.
- To make homemade pumpkin puree, discard all the seeds and any stringy flesh of the pumpkins and roast in an oven for 45 minutes (skin side facing up). Then, scoop out the flesh and puree until smooth.
- Make sure that the center of the pumpkin - cream cheese mixture is set before refrigerating it.
- Pressing crust onto the sides is not necessary.