Halloween Food

I love the fall season for many reason - one being the cooler weather and second is halloween. We were having a Halloween party at my co-worker's place and I decided to make the Pumpkin Cheesecake bars. My coworker had emailed me the recipe for them awhile back when I didn't bake. Now that I have started baking, I thought it would make a perfect addition to the Halloween food table. I made my version with a Gingerbreak Cake and Baking mix instead of the pound cake mix and I used chopped almonds to garnish with on top. I can actually post the recipe for this dessert, yay!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
by Jacki Brown

Ingredients:
1 (160z) pound cake mix
3 eggs
2 tbs. melted butter
4 tsp pumpkin spice (or nutmeg, cloves and ground ginger)
1 (8 0z) cream cheese, softened
1(14 oz) can Eagle sweetened condensed milk
1(160z) can pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chooped nuts (or sliced almonds)

Method:

Grease bottom of a 10x13 pan. Combine cake mix, 1 egg, butter, 2 tsp spice on low speed only until crumbly. Press on bottom of pan.

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in milk, 2 eggs, pumpkin, 2 tsp spice and salt. Mix well. Pour over crust. Sprinkle nuts over the top. Bake 30-35 mins at 350. Cool. Chill. Cut into bars.

Our main course dish included a Roasted Butternut squash pastina served in a pumpkin. This recipe is great to make - once a year. I find it very involved and time consuming and every time I have made it, I have done it with help of one other person. In the end, the efforts are well worth it. So if you are interested, you can check out the recipe here.