Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars with Spicy Crumble Topping

I really wish pumpkin was a more acceptable year-round dessert ingredient. Once in a while I feel like I can slip in a pumpkin bread on the breakfast menu, but not without raising some eyebrows. I was happy when I finally paired the flavors of gingerbread with a pumpkin cheesecake type of dessert that I like to make for Thanksgiving. I love these bars so much that I’ve decided I’m going to defy convention and make them this summer.

The crust and spicy crumble topping for these bars is made with a dozen of my Ginger Chew Cookies (click here for the recipe). The cookies need to be baked off and crumbled for the crust as opposed to patting the dough out and baking it up in the tart pans so that the crust isn’t too firm. That kind of moist and chewy cookie becomes quite formidable once chilled as a crust if it isn’t broken up a bit. The flavor is so wonderful and complementary to the filling, though.

One of the great things about these bars is that you can make them ahead and store them in the freezer, wrapped well, for a month or more. I recommend you freeze them before cutting them, anyway, in order to make the cleanest cuts. They thaw very quickly once they’re cut so they’re ready to serve within 30 minutes or so.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars with Spicy Crumble Topping

A unique and spicy crumble on the top sets these pumpkin cheesecake bars apart from your other holiday desserts.

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 14 minutes mins

Freezing Time 2 hours hrs

Course Dessert

Servings 56

Ingredients

  

Gingerbread Crust

• 12 each Gingerbread Chew Cookies (baked according to recipe)
• 2 Tbps. salted butter (melted)

Spicy Crumble Topping

• 3 each Gingerbread Chew Cookies (diverted from Crust directions)
• 3 Tbsp. powdered/icing sugar
• 1 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon (Vietnamese is my favorite)
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. fine ground black pepper (see Recipe Notes)
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling

• 1 1/2 lbs. cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1 cup powdered/icing sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, canned (see Recipe Notes about this amount)
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

 

Gingerbread Crust

• Bake off the 12 cookies according to the recipe and set 3 of them aside. Crumble up the other 9 cookies and combine them with the melted butter. Pat them into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan (which will yield about 52 bars) or something similar. I use two of my removable bottom tart pans which are each 4.7" x 14", so I yield about 56 bars. See Recipe Notes about other options.
  

Spicy Crumble Topping

• Crumble the 3 cookies into crumbs as fine as you like. I do leave some slightly larger crumbs for texture. Add the dry seasonings and stir to blend together. Set this aside.
  

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling

• In a large bowl, combine cream cheese with everything else. If the cream cheese is too cold, it won't be smooth enough. Sometimes I put it in the microwave on Defrost mode to warm it up a bit. Spread the mixture out into a smooth layer over the crust.
  
• At this point, sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the top (you may have some left over, depending on how much you add) and place the bars in the freezer for 2 hours. If you are making these for another time, wrap them really well and continue storing them in the freezer, uncut. To serve them, remove them from the freezer about 30 minutes before you need them and cut them into roughly 1" x 2" bars. Allow them to stay at room temperature to thaw. Store the rest in the refrigerator if you expect to use them up within a few days or so. Otherwise, wrap any leftovers well and store them in the freezer for another time.
  

Notes

If you want to, you could pat the crust ingredients into a pie dish and serve this as a pie, but the desserts I make for Christmas and Thanksgiving are usually served “out of hand” so I make them into bars using two of my 4.7″ x 14″ tart pans. This is especially handy for me because when I make these for Thanksgiving I leave one of the tart pans wrapped well and in my freezer, uncut until Christmas.

I use only ½ cup of pumpkin puree so that the bars have a good amount of structural integrity once they’re cut up. However, if you want to add more pumpkin and make a lighter chiffon type of pumpkin cheese pie, or if you want to make individual tarts where the filling doesn’t need to be as firm, you can add a total of 1 cup of pumpkin puree to the initial filling.  Then you can whip up 1 cup of heavy whipping cream and fold it in after the initial filling is blended, spreading that mixture into a pie crust or tart shells.

If you don’t have fine ground black pepper or a pepper mill that will grind it finely enough, simply sift some ground black pepper through a fine mesh sieve.  I will grind some and sift it and then hold onto the larger grinds for other recipes.  Then I measure out the fine grinds.

Keyword Holidays