Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies

Posted by: Maggie

Happy October!

It's time for more pumpkin!!! When I mentioned on Tuesday that I have a truckload of pumpkin recipes to get through, I wasn't kidding in the slightest.  I see a lot of recipes for pumpkin cheesecake, and pumpkin brownies, but I wanted a recipe that combined the two.  Unfortunately, I'm not talented enough to make up recipes on my own, so I was happy when I came across exactly what I was looking for on Beantown Baker's blog originally from Cara's Cravings.

I know a lot of people are weirded out by the chocolate/pumpkin combo, but believe me, it's delicious.  Then again, what isn't better with chocolate?  I tried chocolate covered bacon at this restaurant called CoCo Sala back in February, and it was everything I dreamed it would be.


Here's what you'll need:

Brownie Batter
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 T vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 t salt
2 tsp cinnamon

Cheesecake Batter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 T + 2 t all-purpose flour
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 t vanilla extract
2/3 t cinnamon
1/3 t ground ginger*
1/3 t ground cloves*

*Do 1/3 teaspoons even exist? My brain was feeling a tad gelatinous last night from playing flip cup, and rather than try and figure out that situation I just used heaping 1/4 teaspoons...moving on...

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x8" square metal baking pan.

Beat together melted butter, sugar, and vanilla, then beat in eggs one at a time. Combine dry ingredients and then gradually stir into butter mixture with a wooden spoon. In separate bowl, beat together cheesecake batter ingredients.

Spread about 2/3 of chocolate batter into prepared pan, and spoon cheesecake batter over. Dollop remaining brownie batter over cheesecake batter. Swirl the batters together by running a butter knife back and forth through the pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set. Cool completely on wire rack and chill before cutting and serving.

Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies

Posted by: Maggie

Le sigh.  Washington, DC is still repulsively hot and humid, despite the fact that it's almost October.  I've put off baking with pumpkin for a couple weeks now, hoping to have more autumn like temperatures to match my baking, to no avail. 

The unfortunate side effect of this pumpkin procrastination turned out to be an astronomically large folder full of "favorites" saved from various blogs with one common theme: PUMPKIN.  I knew I couldn't wait any longer, so when I got home tonight I pushed the memories of my sweaty day aside and forged ahead on these delicious blondies.

These are more cakey than your typical blondie or brownie recipe, but still super delicious!

Here's what you'll need:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with foil.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt.  Stir together and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined.  Mix in the pumpkin puree.  With the mixer on low speed add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated.  Fold in the white chocolate and butterscotch chips with a rubber spatula.

Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan.  Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs, about 35-40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before cutting.

To serve, lift the cake from the pan using the foil and transfer to a cutting board.  Peel off the foil and using a sharp knife, cut into 24 squares.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Posted by: Annie

Every Monday at my job is "Marvelous Monday", meaning that every Monday morning a different person brings in a treat to kick the week off on a great start. This week it is my turn for Marvelous Monday and my initial idea was to just go with a staple, and in my kitchen that would be my chocolate chip cookies. However, the more I thought about it I realized that I would be less inclined to eat a chocolate chip cookie at 7:30 am, because it lacks that certain breakfast-y feel. After much deliberation I settled on chocolate chip muffins - enough chocolate to make a Monday happy, but with enough muffin to make the guilt of eating chocolate for breakfast disappear.

 

What you'll need: (recipe below yields 1 dozen, I doubled it)

Batter:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 cup chocolate chips

Crumb topping:

3 tbs sugar

2 tbs brown sugar

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. In a separate large bowl mix the milk, eggs, oil, vanilla extract and chocolate chips. Slowly add the dry mixture to the milk/egg mixture until the mixture is moistened. Fill cups 2/3 way. Sprinkle the crumb topping on each of the muffins and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick entered in the center comes out clean.