I’ve been toying with the idea of baking pumpkin blondies for a couple years now. This week I decided I would give them a try, so I dug in and browsed through quite a few recipes, both online and off. In the end I decided to combine a simple blondie recipe, with a pumpkin pie recipe and see what happened.

The pumpkin blondies turned out great, I baked them in a 9×9 baking dish, but I wish I would have used a 9×13 for a thinner bar. I made the blondies and the pumpkin separate, then swirled them together in the baking dish.

Pumpkin Pie Blondies

First up the Blondies:

• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350`F.
2. Lightly coat a 9×9 baking dish with no stick cooking spray (again I think a 9×13 would work better).
3. In one mixing bowl mix together the flour and baking powder.
4. In another bowl cream together the melted butter, vanilla, sugar, and eggs.
5. Add the flour slowly to the butter and egg mixture.
6. Spread in the bottom of your baking dish.

The Pumpkin Pie Layer:

• 1~ 15 oz can of pure pumpkin
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 large eggs

1. Mix all the ingredients together, then pour them over the top of the blondie base.
2. Use a butter knife to swirl the pumpkin layer into the blondie layer. Just run the knife through the whole mixture once or twice to fold the two lightly togethe
3. Bake at 350`F for 50 minutes to an hour, or until it is done all the way through.

It turned out to be a wonderful fall combination, the blondies are thick and chewy with wonderful flavor. I think I’ll definitely make them again, or maybe try the combination in mini muffin pans to make a small tartlet.

I’ve been really hungry for pumpkin cheesecake lately, so I decided tonight I was going to make one. A friend of mine gave me a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake several years ago, but I couldn’t find it in my recipe box tonight. Not sure what I’ve done with it.

I decided to give Paula Deen’s pumpkin cheesecake recipe a try, so here is my adapted version of the recipe. I’m never good at following a recipe perfectly, I always have to make a few little changes. Plus after two trips to the grocery store in one day, I didn’t have any sour cream in the fridge (head slap).

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust:

• 1 3/4 cups graham cinnamon cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

• 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
• 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350`F. Mix the crust ingredients together, then pat them in the bottom of a Non Stick 9-Inch Springform Pan.

Beat the cream cheese to soften it up. Combine all the filling ingredients in a large bowl, until they’re all well mixed together. Pour the filling on top of the crust. Put the springform pan into a little larger baking dish, and put an inch of water in the bottom of the baking dish. Slide the whole thing in the oven and bake it for one hour.

Once the cheesecake is finished baking remove it from the oven and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes. Then cover it with plastic wrap and slide it in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. I put mine in the fridge over night.

We ate some of the cheesecake in slices, but I used some to make these adorable pumpkin cheesecake pops, dipped in white chocolate. One thing led to another, and I ended up dipping the pumpkin cheesecake pops in melted orange chocolate to make little pumpkin cheesecake pumpkins (hop over and check them out I posted them at The Kid’s Birthday Fun Review).