Last week, I got a serious craving for Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars. (The funny thing is that I’m not even sure I’ve ever had one!) Anyway I ran to the store to get what I thought would be the perfect 4 ingredients to make some. Multiple trips, many failed attempts and who knows how many added pounds later (you gotta taste stuff!), I came up with these scrumptious Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Bars. Here’s what you’ll need:
1 can of pumpkin purée
2 packages of cream cheese
1/4 cup of sugar + 3 Tablespoons
1 pkg of spiced cake mix
Step 1. Preheat oven to 325 then soften 10 oz (1 & 1/4 packages) of cream cheese in the microwave until it is very soft and stirable. Then in a large mixing bowl combine the cream cheese and pumpkin.
Step 2. In another bowl, throughly combine 2 cups of spiced cake mix with 1/4 cup of the pumpkin/cream cheese mixture. (At first, it will seem like you have way too much cake mix but keep working the dough.) Form four large balls. Next place the dough balls in each corner of a sprayed 8x8 pan. You then press down and spread out each ball to form a crust.
Step 3. Now return to the pumpkin/cream cheese mixture and stir in 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of the cake mix. You then spoon this filling on top of the crust layer and place in oven for 35 to 40 min.
Step 4. When baking is done, turn off the oven and leave dish in for 10 min. with the door half open. Then, place the dish in the frig. for at least 2 hours so bars can set.
Step 5. Soften 6 more ozs. of cream cheese then whip with 3 tablespoons of sugar. Next ice the pan of bars and return to the frig for 30 min. or so.
Step. 6. You then immediately slice all the way through the layers with a very sharp utensil and carefully remove from the pan. (I use a baby metal spatula.) Serve at room temperature. You might need to use forks cause they will be a big gooey but boy are they good!!
Looking Back
My mother-in law Mimi Pickett used to make these 2 ingredient Pumpkin Cookies all the time! So much so that when we recently hired a carpet cleaner for the Pickett family home on Balboa Island, he said that when he used to clean the carpets there Mimi would give him pumpkin cookies! That was just like our Mimi!
Fun Sayings
I have a friend named Bradley whom I have known since Kindergarten at Highland’s Day School. (My Daddy used to call it Holiday Inn School, by the way. I think he was suggesting that the school was so cushy that it was like we were on perpetual vacation.) Anyway, when I go back to Birmingham, my and Bradley’s favorite thing to do is pig out on junk food and watch “Hart of Dixie”. The other day, Bradley called me ‘cause Wade, the bartender, on the show described someone as “drunk as a boiled owl”. I guess “boiled” means drunk, so basically the saying means: Drunk as a drunk owl. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s funny especially when cute Wade says it with a very small town Alabama accent!