Chef Mik's Pumpkin Cheese Bar

Around the first or second weekend of December together with a good friend of mine here in L.A. we through together a “Glögg” party which we try and tie in several themes including the Mid Winter Solstice, Lucia and Jul, if we have any Jewish partiers we raise a glass and toast to Chanukah, as we do Kwanza and any other Faith or those who celebrate no faith whatsoever. At any rate at this years function I was chatting with a guest who works at a local studio here in L.A. discussing the various services we provide when he asked me if we offered any pumpkin cheese bars, I said sure we can prepare that for you and that was that. However the next day I was sitting at the computer and decided to do some research, now I have made plenty of pumpkin pies and cheese cakes in my time, I’ve even made several pumpkin cheesecakes and I think when I spit out those words so confidently the night before I just assumed it would be a pumpkin cheesecake prepared in a sheet pan. But not one of the recipes I researched reflected that approach; there were several that were very cake like, and others that were more like a cookie. By the time I was done I was aware of only one thing, it was all so very confusing and when things get that way the only thing to do is strip them down to their bare basics and simplify things! So that’s what I’ve done here today, to that end I am not creaming anything together, I’m not working out the recipe in stages I just decided to through everything in the processor and see what happens! Now I am a trained professional and I did have a pretty good idea of how this would turn out but there are the little things like monitoring the consistency so that it wouldn’t become to grainy instead creating a nice sheen, which you do by working in stages nonetheless in the end if taste and time are the most important factors to you then this method is the one you’ve been looking for!

Shopping List 

Pumpkin puree

Cream cheese

Eggs

Baker’s sugar

Unbleached all purpose flour

Vanilla

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Salt

Baking soda

Baking powder, optional

Gram cracker crumbs

Butter, unsalted

My Mad Method

Ready to eat!!

Combine 5dl gram cracker crumbs together with 1dl butter (melted), 1dl sugar, ½ tsp cinnamon and ¼ tsp nutmeg

Spread evenly over the bottom of a quarter sized (22cm by 34cm) sheet pan

Combine 5dl pumpkin puree, 5dl cream cheese, 3 eggs plus 1 extra egg yoke, 2.5dl sugar, 4 TBSP flour, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ baking powder (optional) ¼ tsp salt (optional) together in a food processor

Puree until smooth

 

Pore the batter over gram cracker crumbs and garish if desired (I have done so with sour cream flavored with sugar and cinnamon I thinned it with a little milk).

Bake in a 175c preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean  

Ready to serve!!

 

If you have any batter left you can fill one portion mini pie forms as well if you like!