Pumpkin Cheesecake Dream Bars

By srumbel

Pumpkin lovers of all ages will instantly fall in LOVE with these easy-to-make pumpkin cheesecake bars. They are like the lovechild of cheesecake and pumpkin pie!
from chocolatecoveredkatie.com

Ingredients

• 12 oz cream cheese - such as Daiya
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup sugar, xylitol, or pure maple syrup
• pinch uncut stevia OR 1 additional tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice or additional cinnamon
• 1 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cornstarch - such as Rapunzel non-GMO

Preparation

Step 1

Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper and your crust of choice unless you’d prefer crustless bars. (The crust I used is linked earlier in this post.) Set aside. Bring your cream cheese to room temperature or gently warm until easily stir-able. Preheat oven to 350 F. If you have an extra baking pan of any size to spare, fill it halfway with water and place on the lower rack of your oven. (This step can be skipped; it just helps prevent cracking.) Blend together all ingredients until just blended—don’t overblend, which would introduce air into the bars and cause cracking later on. Pour the batter into the first prepared 8×8 pan, smooth out evenly, and place on the middle rack of your oven. Bake 25 minutes, then leave the oven door closed but turn off the oven and let the bars sit in the turned-off oven for another 5 minutes. Take out the still-underbaked bars and let them sit at room temperature for an hour. (Don’t skip this, as putting them straight from the oven to the fridge would cause—you guessed it!—cracking.) Then refrigerate at least 4 hours, during which time they will firm up quite a bit. Slice into bars, and store leftovers in the fridge or even in the freezer if you want to thaw them another day.

Yield: 9-16 bars