Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies; dense, fudgy, and creamy all at the same time, these unusual blondies are an Autumnal baking dream!
I’ve been a complete shut-in over the past 7 days, up to my eyeballs in university coursework while my friends are all out having fun. It sucks.
However, yesterday I was unstoppable, powering through essays and tutorial work like there was no tomorrow. It’s probably the most productive day I’ve had in a long time, and it paid off. Why? I’ll tell you why, because it means that today I had some free time to do some recipe testing for myself and all you lovely people.
In my excitement, I decided to test out a recipe which sounds crazy, complicated and downright weird. And the finished product is my take on White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies. Mental, I know.
These were inspired by one of my favourite food-bloggers, her name is Karina and she runs Cafe Delites. I’d really recommend checking her out! She posted her recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies earlier this month and the name alone had me drooling, so I thought I’d make my own (maverick) attempt at them and post my version of the recipe with British measurements and temperatures to boot!
I’ve been on a bit of a pumpkin kick lately, which is only fair as they seem to take up about 60% of the vegetable section of the supermarkets until mid-November! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin risotto, you name it and I’ve probably put pumpkin in it. Don’t be scared of adding veggies to your baking folks, the results can be absolutely wonderful.
Now, let’s talk about these blondies. Blondies are similar to brownies but are normally made either without the chocolate or with white chocolate instead; dense, fudgey and perfectly decadent for their small stature, I love them. These little guys are no exception.
They have a deliciously spiced fudgey pumpkin blondie base with a marbled creamy cheesecake topping. My brain actually can’t conjure up enough adjectives to describe these with, they’re just damn good, ok?
Karina’s original recipe used milk chocolate chips and low-fat cream cheese. As much as I can imagine they still tasted amazing, I just had to add more chocolate chips (using white instead for extra sweetness) and use full fat cheese. I also threw in some extra spice, margarine and vanilla to kick these up a notch. Sorry, I just really never manage to stick to a recipe!
Speaking of recipes, here it is. Go make ’em.
First you’ll need to preheat your oven and grease and line a square baking tin. Lining the tin with greaseproof paper is a good idea with this recipe, you don’t want to lose half of your blondie base if it sticks to the tin!
Weigh your pumpkin puree into a large bowl (isn’t it a pretty colour?) and add in the sugars, melted butter/margarine, egg and vanilla. Use a whisk to beat it all together until creamy and combined.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice and salt. Use a spatula or spoon to gently fold this together until everything is just mixed in, you don’t want to over-mix this as it ruins the texture.
Stir in your chocolate chips and set the bowl aside while you prepare the luscious cheesecake topping.
In another bowl, add all the cheesecake ingredients and beat together until combined. As the full-fat cream cheese can make this mixture quite stiff, it’s a good idea to add splashes of milk until the mix reaches a soft-dropping consistency. You want to be able to spread it nicely but not pour it, so just add the milk gradually until it seems right.
Grab your prepared baking tin and pour in the pumpkin blondie mix, smooth the top with a spoon or spatula.
Next, spoon on your cheesecake layer, making sure to try and cover every little part of the blondie mix. Again, use a spoon or spatula to gently smooth the top without disturbing the layer beneath.
Now just grab a table knife or the back of a spoon and gently marble the two mixtures together, you want to get a nice patterned effect while still keeping the separate layers in tact. Don’t worry, mine looked a mess too!
Pop your tin into the preheated oven. These little blighters can take anything from 25-35 minutes to bake so keep an eye on them! Mine took the full 35. A skewer inserted into the centre should pull out mostly clean once they’re ready and the top should not look wet any more.
Once baked to your satisfaction, allow the blondies to cool in their tin for about 20 minutes before removing them and cooling completely on a wire rack.
When cooled (or at least not hot any more!) slice the little Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies into 16 squares. I guarantee you won’t be able to eat just one of these, in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole lot disappeared by the end of the day!
Just look at them. That cheesecake layer is enough to make anyone look twice.
Finally? Tuck in to the fudgey, creamy goodness of these weird and wonderful Autumnal Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies!
Scroll down for the full recipe!
Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies!
Ingredients
For the Blondie base:
- 225g (1 cup) pumpkin puree (you can either use tinned puree or just cook some fresh pumpkin/squash/sweet potato and mash it into a puree)
- 100g (½ cup) soft light brown sugar
- 75g (⅓ cup) caster sugar
- 30g (2 tbsp) melted butter
- 1 egg
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 130g (1 cup) plain flour (you can use oat flour or ground almonds too!)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp mixed spice
- Pinch of salt
- 50g (2 oz) white chocolate chips
For the cheesecake topping:
- 250g (8 ½ oz) full-fat cream cheese (such as Philadelphia)
- 50g ( ¼ cup) caster sugar
- 25g (3 tbsp) plain flour
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- Splash of milk to loosen (50ml/ ¼ cup should be plenty)
Instructions
For the Blondie base:
- Preheat your oven – 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F / gas mark 4.
- Grease and line an 20 x 20cm (8 × 8in) or 23 x 23cm (9 × 9in) square baking tin.
- Weigh your pumpkin puree into a large bowl and add in the sugars, melted butter, egg and vanilla. Use a whisk to beat it all together until creamy and combined.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice and salt. Use a spatula or spoon to gently fold this together until everything is just mixed in.
- Stir in your chocolate chips and set the bowl aside while you prepare the cheesecake topping.
For the Cheesecake topping:
- In a large bowl, add all the cheesecake ingredients and beat together until combined. As the full-fat cream cheese can make this mixture quite stiff, it’s a good idea to add splashes of milk until the mix reaches a soft-dropping consistency. You want to be able to spread it nicely but not pour it, so just add the milk gradually until it seems right.
- Grab your prepared baking tin and pour in the pumpkin blondie mix, smooth the top with a spoon or spatula.
- Next, spoon on your cheesecake layer, making sure to try and cover every little part of the blondie mix. Again, use a spoon or spatula to gently smooth the top without disturbing the layer beneath.
- Now just grab a table knife or the back of a spoon and gently marble the two mixtures together.
- Pop your tin into the preheated oven. These can take anything from 25-35 minutes to bake so keep an eye on them! Mine took the full 35. A skewer inserted into the centre should pull out mostly clean once they’re ready and the top should not look wet any more.
- Once baked to your satisfaction, allow the blondies to cool in their tin for about 20 minutes before removing them and cooling completely on a wire rack.
- When cooled slice the little beauties into 16 squares.
- Enjoy!
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