Rut Filling with Pumpkin Goodness

Ok, well last post I mentioned a baking rut. My brain has been swimming with school work, plane ticket prices, and trying to save money for a trip I have to take in a few weeks. This weekend is my last free one in the month of October, and after that I'm more booked than the Encyclopedia Brown or Goosebumps. So I needed to snap, crackle, and pop my way out of it. What to do?

A birthday? Say what? Oh man, I almost forgot! Whew, that was a close one. Thank you so very much Facebook for letting me kno... errrr reinforcing the idea that a good friend of mine's birthday is coming up. I swear that little stalker network has saved me countless times :)

So, my rut has been broken, or filled. For the past few years, yours truely has been deemed the birthday dessert maker. Yup, for my close circle of friends, I ask, and they shall recieve, in sugar and delicious form. Do I get the answer of "Oh, Adam, dude... I don't care, make something up"? Yup, I get it every single time. It's a good thing I'm a left handed, right brained, creative Pisces man. Some people might get flustered at something like that :)

So my buddy loves two things when it comes to dessert. Pumpkin and coffee. Weird combo? Maybe... but it can be done. I went for a walk to clear my head, and it came to me, and a pumpkin headed spirit appeared in the street...

"You shall make Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies with Pecans" it said. Ok, not really, but that's the idea I came up with. Problem number two came though... I don't really like brownies. Gasp* Please don't stone me... I love other things! Cinnamon, vanilla, fruit, jam, nuts... just not really chocolate. Is it ok to not hide anymore?

So I had to enlist the help of a Portugese pastry chef. This is a no brainer for me. If you want to get your roof fixed, you call a roofer, not a dog groomer, right? Exactly. So after much collaboration and laughter, (probably more of the latter the way we talk) we agreed on a recipe that is similar to this one by Ina Garten, but I changed it a bit. A 13x18 size pan is an absolute monster, so I roughly quartered the recipe and made up a few other things. Much thanks to Clumbsy Cookie, for being an awesome, and Ina, for giving me a base recipe. 3 way high five, good buddies :)

Pecan Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake Brownies
A concoction of Ina, Rita, and Adam

For the Pumpkin Cheesecake:
-8oz low fat cream cheese
-1/4 cup sugar
-1 egg yolk
-1 cup pumpkin, (approx.)
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ginger
-pinch of cloves, or two :)

For the Brownie Layer: -
4 oz unsalted butter
-9 oz chopped up chocolate, separated into two 4 oz parts (I used bittersweet)
-1 egg and 1 egg white
-1 tbsp espresso powder (it helped keep us up at night)
-2 tsp vanilla
-3/4 cup sugar
-1/2 cup flour
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 tsp baking powder
-Chopped pecans (however much you want)

Preheat your oven to 350*. Prepare a 9x9 pan lined with foil, and sprayed with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, first make the cream cheese filling. Mix the cream cheese and sugar together, much like using a "creaming method" with either a wooden spoon or hand mixer. Add the egg yolk, and canned pumpkin, a tablespoon at a time. The pumpkin has a lot of moisture, so you want the mix to be thicker, and not really liquidy. Just use your best judgment. It should be a loose batter. Add the spices to the batter, and mix until it all comes together evenly. Set aside.

In a small bowl, melt the butter and one half of your chopped chocolate together. I microwave for 30 seconds and slowly stir. Let this mixture cool once it's evenly melted and glossy.

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together: The sugar, flour, espresso powder, baking powder, and salt.

Once the chocolate mix has cooled slightly, carefully add the eggs (watch out for scrambled eggs), and mix well. Add the vanilla, and then add all of this into the dry flour mix bowl. Stir and mix well. Add in the rest of the chopped chocolate and pecans, and pour this batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with a spatula.

Take your cream cheese mix and drop tablespoon fulls on top of the batter. Try to leave spaces between the spots where you place it. With a knife or blade, drive through the batter to "marbleize" it, and make it look like a beautiful pumpkin brownie mosaic. Awesome job. Bake for about 45 minutes. The cheesecake addition makes these brownies require a longer baking time than usual. Try not to over bake, check with the toothpick test, and cool on a wire rack.
Well, these brownies disappeared as fast as a teenage girl on a friday night. I don't know whether it was the party atmosphere, or the fact that I'm not a terrible baker (I did get help on this one), but they were devoured. Maybe it's the fall flavor, maybe it's the chocolate, maybe it was the uh, beverage consumption. Whatever the case, I suggest you try these out. If you have a favorite brownie recipe, give that a shot too :)