Hooray hooray for autumn desserts! I know my previous apple dessert could be considered my autumnal dessert christening, but I’d much rather prefer this were it because it’s just so much tastier, but not that much more complicated! I got to act as office dessert dealer fairy once again this week and made these to celebrate my coworker Kara’s birthday.  She seems to have a sweet tooth to match mine, so I knew I wanted to do something ultra rich, decadent, and of course, chocolatey.  Since I’ll be making cupcakes for Halloween in a few weeks (ooh, preview!) I decided to go with this, because honestly: cheesecake + pumpkin + chocolate = how can you go wrong?

The original recipe calls for chocolate wafer cookies and for some reason my local grocer only carried these ridiculously overpriced froufrou ones ($5.69 for 9 ounces of cookies! are they insane?!) so I decided to go a more frugal route. Luckily I remember once reading a recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks which had you use chocolate Teddy Graham cookies to make the base of a chocolate crust. Already being a huge fan of them, I figured killing two birds with one stone (make the bars, satisfy my own sweet tooth) was the smartest route.

Plus it’s so fun to pulse up little animal-shaped cookies.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Squares

Based on the recipe from Martha Stewart.

I didn’t have pumpkin pie spice, my local grocer doesn’t have bulk spices, and I wasn’t about to shell out $3.89 for a teaspoon of it.  So I just mixed up my own, which I listed below the main recipe. Makes 16 bars.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 20 chocolate wafer cookies or about 1¼ cups chocolate Teddy Grahams cookies
• 2 TBL sugar
• 4 TBL (half stick) unsalted butter, melted.

For the filling:

• 2 8-ounce packages bar cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 large eggs
• 3 TBL all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (recipe below)
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Directions:

1.) Preheat oven to 350° F with rack set in middle of the oven. Spray an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray, then line with parchment, leaving overhang on at least 2 sides so you can lift the bars after they’ve chilled.

2.) In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the cookies and sugar until fine. Add the melted butter and pulse until moist.

3.) Pour the crumb mixture into the pan and pat down with your fingertips. Bake until slightly firm and fragrant, about 10-12 minutes.  Once done, let cool.

4.) While the crust bakes, prepare the filling.  Rinse out the bowl of the food processor and then add the cream cheese. Pulse until smooth and then add the pumpkin, salt, eggs, flour, pumpkin pie spice, and sugar. Pulse again until creamy.

5.) Melt the chocolate in a medium-sized bowl in 30-second increments until smooth.  Add one cup of the pumpkin/cream cheese mixture to the chocolate and stir until combined.

6.) Pour the remaining pumpkin/cream cheese mixture into the prepared baking pan.  Drop large spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture onto the pumpkin and then swirl using a paring knife or wooden skewer.  Bake until set, but still slightly jiggly in the center, about 40-50 minutes.  Cool completely.

7.) Once cooled, cover, and chill until firm, at least 5 hours, preferably overnight. Once chilled, remove from the pan and cut into 16 squares.

Pumpkin Pie Spice:

Combine the following:

• ¼ tsp ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp ground clove
• 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• ½ tsp cinnamon

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