Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake for Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Several blog challenges this month have had pumpkin as their theme, but We Should Cocoa asked, of course, for recipes including both pumpkin and chocolate. I am going to friends' for dinner tonight and offered to bring dessert, so I decided that some sort of chocolate and pumpkin cake or pudding would be perfect. I love cheesecake, and thought these flavours would work well together, so simply hunted around on the internet until I found some recipes to inspire me.

The ones that particularly stood out were this Hershey's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cheesecake and this Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake from Moms Who Think. I ended up adapting the recipes and throwing in a few tweaks of my own; does that entitle me to call this an original Caroline Makes recipe?

Hershey's Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake

1 cup Graham Cracker or other biscuit crumbs (eg digestive)

1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa Powder (you can actually buy this from Asda in the UK)

1/2 cup melted butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 handfuls of Hershey's Kisses (exact number doesn't matter but I used about half a standard-sized packet)

600g cream cheese

1 cup granulated sugar

1 can (425g) solid packed pumpkin - I bought this from Amazon but have been told Waitrose sell it, and of course it's quite easy to get hold of in the US

4 eggs

1/2 cup condensed milk

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

(you could also replace these last two with pumpkin pie spice)

Preheat oven to 180C/ 160 C fan. Grease a 9-inch springform cake tin.

Mix the Graham Cracker or biscuit crumbs with the cocoa powder and sugar. Melt the butter in the microwave and mix in to the biscuits to make thick crumbs.

Press onto the bottom of the tin. As you can see, this is a case of "do as I say, not as I do".... I forgot to add the cocoa powder. But it would definitely work in this recipe and give a lovely chocolate base.

Take one bag of Hershey's Kisses and try not to eat too many as you unwrap...

Dot the Hershey's Kisses all over the cheesecake base.

Beat the cheese and sugar until smooth

 

Take one can of pumpkin - I bought this from Amazon. Beat in to the mixture.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Then beat in the flour and whatever spices you are using.

Carefully pour the mixture into the tin around the Hershey's kisses so as not to dislodge them from their position, then pour the rest of the mixture over the top, retaining about 1 cup of the pumpkin and cheese mixture in your mixing bowl.

Melt a handful of Hershey's Kisses in the microwave and mix in to the remaining pumpkin mixture, which will turn chocolate in colour. Carefully pour this on top of your cheesecake and use a spoon to swirl; you'll get a pattern like this below.

Bake in the oven for an hour then leave to cool. A crack did appear in the surface of mine but you could hide this with whipped cream; it is worth keeping an eye on the cheesecake while it is cooking though.

I love the pattern on the top!

Unfortunately I can't show any more pictures or even comment on what it tastes like at this stage as I am taking it to my friends' for dinner tonight, but needed to write the blog post now in order to enter various blogging challenges before the deadline! Rest assured that I will come back to this post and tell you what this actually tastes like!

Update: Well, we had the cheesecake after dinner tonight and I was a little unsure if I would like the taste, and hadn't even taken it out of the tin at this stage! But I needn't have worried:

It sliced really well and while the Hershey's Kisses didn't hold their shape, you can see where the chocolate is inside:

It tasted absolutely delicious, really light and creamy and the pumpkin taste wasn't overpowering at all. I think this is one of the nicest cheesecakes I've made, and even my boyfriend - who looked quite worried when I mentioned the pumpkin - really liked it!

I have already missed the deadline for We Should Cocoa, the brainchild of Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Tea Pot, which is the challenge I actually wanted to make this for in the first place, but Nat from Hungry Hinny, who is this month's guest host, has said she will still add this to the roundup - thanks Nat!

I am also sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and Laura from Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is Halloween, and this would be the perfect dessert to come back to after an evening of trick or treating.

Pumpkins are most definitely in season so I am sending this to Simple And In Season, an event created by Ren of Fabulicious Food and this month hosted by Franglais Kitchen.

Franglais Kitchen is also the host of this month's One Ingredient Challenge, created by How To Cook Good Food, where the ingredient is - helpfully - also pumpkin!
 

Halloween Fiesta, hosted by Cooks Joy, is welcoming recipes using pumpkin or squash this month so I am entering this recipe.

Cooks Joy is also hosting a Diwali Bash where the theme is also pumpkin:

I am also sending this to United Bakes of America hosted by Cupcake Crazy Gem.

I am updating this to send it to Cooking Around the World, as their theme this month (for which they accept old posts) is American food.

 

Nanaimo Bars for Alphabakes

When we announced the letter for this month's Alphabakes as N, I knew right away what I wanted to make - Nanaimo Bars. Unfortunately at least two other people have already beaten me to it for the blog challenge, one of whom used the exact same recipe I was planning to use... but undeterred, I decided to make this for my Alphabakes entry anyway.

Nanaimo Bars originate from Canada and are popular across North America. They have three layers: a bottom biscuit layer, a middle custard layer and covered with chocolate on top. Apparently the recipe was created by a local housewife and became popular, selling particularly in the coffee shops in Nanaimo in British Colombia, hence the name.

I found that Edd Kimber, aka the Boy Who Bakes, had a recipe for these bars on his website and as I haven't made any of his recipes before, decided it would be good to try. It also looked pretty straightforward, which was a bonus!

I won't republish the entire recipe here; you can use the link above to see it on Edd's site. I found it interesting that he uses American measurements for his recipe (eg 2 cups biscuit crumbs), as he's based in the UK, but perhaps it's because this is a Canadian recipe. In any case I have a set of American measuring cups so that was no problem! Here's what I did:

Line a square baking tin with foil. Melt half a cup of butter.

Stir in a quarter cup of sugar and a third of a cup of cocoa powder. I didn't have a 1/3 cup size so just estimated.

Slowly whisk in one egg until the mixture thickens.

Take off the heat and mix in 1 tsp vanilla, 2 cups biscuit crumbs (I used Graham Cracker crumbs that I brought back from my trip to America) and 1 cup dessicated coconut. I was quite pleased the recipe called for this, as I'd had half a bag of dessicated coconut hanging around in the back of the cupboard for a while!

 

Mix well and press down into the prepared tin and refrigerate until firm.

Beat a quarter cup of butter and add 2 cups icing sugar.

Mix 2 tbsp custard powder with 3 tbsp milk and add to the mixture. Add a little more milk if the mixture is too stodgy, though as I discovered you really don't want it to be runny!

Spread over the base layer and refrigerate again until firm.

Melt 85g dark chocolate with 1 tbsp butter and spread over the top. I actually found this wasn't enough so melted some more butter and chocolate. Again, refrigerate until set.

It looks very nice when it is set....

.... but here comes the real test: slicing it into bars!

It started off OK but as you can see, the filling ended up squidging out (is that a word?). The chocolate on top had set so hard that to get a knife through I had to press down quite firmly, and that in turn made the custard layer come out of each side. I was quite annoyed as the other people who made this already for Alphabakes didn't seem to have had this problem!

Here's one that did turn out ok, you can see the three layers clearly.

 The base is perhaps a little thicker than I would have liked and to be honest I wasn't really a fan of the dessicated coconut in the biscuit layer and would have preferred to leave it out. I've since read that there are several variations on nanaimo bars for instance using peanut butter, which sounds nice! So if you are going to give this a go, my main piece of advice would be to make the custard layer thicker than you think you need - so thick in fact that it's not that easy to spread onto the biscuit layer. It probably explains why I needed more chocolate to cover the top as well, as I spread it on too thick. If I had spread it thinner, it wouldn't have been so hard to cut through with a knife and the custard might not have oozed out! Oh well, we live and we learn!

I am sending this to Alphabakes, hosted this month by Ros of the More Than Occasional Baker

I am also sending this to United Bakes in America, hosted by Cupcake Crazy Gem. Before all you Canadians get up in arms and say that just because this is popular in America it doesn't count, let me explain that the reason I am entering it is because my Graham Cracker Crumbs came from Wal-Mart in Denver, Colorado!

Puppy dog cupcakes

Woof woof!

Random Recipes and Tea Time Treats have teamed up this month so the challenge was to assemble all of your recipe books that contain cakes, biscuits and other tea time treats, and pick something at random. I did just that, and the book that my hand fell upon (OK, poetic licence there - I actually went all high tech and used a random number generator!) was none other than Hello, Cupcake!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the behemoth that is Hello Cupcake, it's an American publishing sensation that encompasses books, a website, an app and even a calendar. They show you how to make cupcakes that look like animals, boxes of popcorn, shoes - they are known for their imaginative designs. They're not meant to be hard and use everyday items, usually sweets/candy, but one problem I've had is that this is an American book and they often list ingredients I've never heard of and can't get in the UK, so I have to substitute what I can. I have made some of their designs before - these ducks, penguins and werewolves - as they are really fun and have a huge impact when people see your creations. I'd been meaning to make something else from their book for a while and had stocked up on some goodies on a recent trip to America, so when I opened the book at random, I was hoping it would be something I could do....


As I knew this one would take a while, I decided to cheat slightly and use a packet cake mix. Has anyone used these before? I never have, and often think they are a bit pointless - you still need to add eggs and oil to the dry ingredients so it's not like it's all that much quicker. But I've tasted cakes made from this mix before and they are actually really nice, and I've been told it is a good standby to have in the cupboard if you do need to whip up cakes in a hurry. I've never exactly suffered from a cake emergency before but then, I don't have children or many visitors to my house, so who knows?

 

Stage one: Take your cake mix!

 

Mix according to instructions. As this is the first time I've used a packet mix, I'll do a little review... I found that mixing everything together in one go, rather than adding the ingredients gradually, made it a little hard to mix properly and there were a few lumps. Also, eggs are generally the one ingredient I don't have in the fridge so buying them to go with a cake mix isn't any quicker than buying them to make a cake from scratch, since I generally do have the other ingredients I need and it doesn't take all that long to make a cake. But I can see there are some advantages to having a packet mix in the cupboard just in case. In addition, the cakes taste amazing - really light and springy. So on that basis I might buy this again.

I don't have a photo of the finished cakes but they are essentially just chocolate cupcakes so you don't need a picture! I made a few trying to follow the instructions from Hello Cupcake - they tell you how to make different breeds of dog - and they looked horrible, like a cross between a goblin and a monster. In the end I found a method that worked, which was loosely based on the one given in the book but really I made it up as I went along, so I don't think I'll be breaking any copyright rules if I show you how I did it!

If you recall from this post, I bought a lot of baking supplies in America earlier this month. I bought a tub of Betty Crocker whipped vanilla frosting, purely as it looked a bit different and was something we can't get in the UK. It's pure white, and has the texture (and similar taste) of marshmallow fluff. I don't know how they make it and if there is a way to make buttercream that is actually white (maybe using Trex, but that would taste horrible!) so I might have to look into that. I was very glad to have it though, as I realised using chocolate icing for my dog cakes was making them look like the things that dogs leave behind.... so I went with the white icing instead.

First I covered a cupcake with some of the white frosting

Then I cut a piece of marshmallow into a triangle. I happened to have orange marshmallows (they were the pumpkin-shaped ones I bought in America), but in restrospect it would have been much better to use white marshmallows.

 

 

I covered the marshmallow with more frosting. It just looks like a big lump now but that's the angle of the photo - it does actually have a raised part which is going to form the dog's nose and mouth area.

 

Next I added two smaller pieces of marshmallow for the eyes...

...and covered these in frosting as well. The shape is better than it appears from this photo - though I have to admit it's not particularly neat! Patience is not one of my virtues.

Adding eyes and nose. Here's a random thing: the Hello Cupcake book frequently suggests using mini M&Ms for eyes, and I never knew what to do as we don't have those in the UK. I just used normal M&Ms and thought they worked and weren't too big. Now I know why - normal M&Ms in America seem to be much bigger than the ones we have here! Unless that was just the kind I bought - I got peanut butter M&Ms, which taste amazing! I used one for the nose, and mini M&Ms for the eyes. I think that our M&Ms are somewhere betweeen the two sizes.

The book also specifies Famous Chocolate Wafers for many of its recipes, another brand we don't have in the UK, but I was able to buy some of these over the internet. They are flat, round, fairly thin chocolate biscuits that remind me a little of Oreos (only thinner and without the filling).

Cut the biscuit to make the ears, and stick into the side of the cupcake like this. I also made a tongue from a small piece of a strawberry lace.

Here's a slightly better one... do you think they look like puppies? They didn't turn out much like the ones in the Hello Cupcake book after all, but I think they are cute!

Side view

This is a different one - I managed to make nine in the end, six of which I took into work for the Macmillan bake sale, and three I'm saving for my family when I see them this weekend.

A litter of puppies! The dots of orange you can see are from the marshmallow, so as I said I'm wishing I'd used white ones.

 

These went down pretty well at the bake sale! My favourite is the one in the middle of the bottom row, I think it actually does look quite canine!

 

Now comes the multi-challenge badges... first of all I made this for Random Recipes hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen and Tea Time Treats, which is co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked, as I chose this recipe at random from my collection of baking books. It was a great idea to combine the two challenges!

Next as I made cupcakes I am sending them to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel of Dolly Bakes and Laura at Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is cupcakes.

I'm also sending it to Cupcake Tuesday, hosted by Hoosier Homemade

As this is a US recipe book and so many of my ingredients came from America, I am sending this to Cupcake Crazy Gem's United Bakes of America challenge. Gem has just moved from the UK to Vancouver so now has direct access to Wal-Mart, I'm so jealous!

And finally, since I'm hosting Alphabakes this month and have accepted a few late entries, I thought I'd slip in a late entry of my own. The letter this month is P and the title of this recipe in Hello Cupcake is Pup Cakes, though I prefer to call them Puppy dog cupcakes :-)