Oh, Dough You Didn't!

Pumpkin is a strange thing. It’s one of the only vegetables that has its own holiday, is written into our social fabric through stories like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and has developed a cultish flavor following thanks to Starbucks bashing us over the head with another pumpkin-flavored drink. However, is there anything that looks less appealing slopping out of an aluminum can with a sickening “Sploosh” sound? Come to think of it, does anything look or sound good sliding or slopping out of an aluminum can…yeah…no.

If you haven’t gathered by now I’m not a huge pumpkin fan, so it was extremely surprising that I liked these bars as much as I did. This was my first foray into making a cheesecake-ish dessert of any kind, bar or otherwise. I love a good cheesecake, especially ones with a graham cracker crust like these bars have, so I was confident I would at least enjoy the supple, creamy texture that a good cheesecake delivers. And these didn’t disappoint. The cinnamon, ginger, and fresh nutmeg blend really nicely with the graham cracker and creamy goodness.

*And for those of you wondering why no photo of the bars cut up on a plate…uhhh…yeah, I forgot. So, I’ll update this post once I make these again…pinky promise.

RESULTS

These bars were really good, very creamy and the pumpkin flavor was present without being overpowering, which I appreciated. The graham cracker base was a simple and delicious complement to the bar. The fall flavors blend really nicely, and this may be the closest thing to a hug in dessert form.

FOR NEXT TIME

In addition to getting some photos of the actual bars cut up and looking fancy, here are a few other things I would change the next time around.

• I would definitely cook these a little bit longer next time. The middle bars were a little softer than I wanted and made cutting them up and serving them a little difficult without making a mess. Obviously, this was a me issue not a recipe issue.
• Making the graham cracker crust was the first of two major steps to this recipe, and I would make the crust a little thicker next time. I do love me some graham cracker crust! Come to think of it, I love pretty much all crusts, so for me more would have been better.
• Prior to the swirling of pumpkin into the cream cheese batter in the pan, I would take greater care when adding the dollops of pumpkin to the cream cheese mixture and make sure not to overwhip the cream cheese. The overwhipping caused the cream cheese to be a little softer (I think), and the dollops of pumpkin were a little larger than they should have been. That, combined with me dropping these spoonfuls of pumpkin in like it was a cannonball competition, caused the pumpkin to drop to the bottom of the pan making the swirling process more difficult and I think resulted in an inconsistent bake.