Pumpkin Oreo Cheesecake Bites

 I've wanted to make pumpkin oreo cheesecake bites for about a month. Slowly I gathered the ingredients, a box of Oreos here, a bag of sugar there, a can of pumpkin leftover from Halloween. The recipe caught my eye because of all the pretty layers. With Thanksgiving coming up this week, I thought it would be the perfect time to make it.

While baking these cheesecake bites, I ended up with a lot of leftover pumpkin layer and cheesecake layer batter. When I typed the recipe out, I halved the original recipe. I found out that unmolding cheesecakes from mini muffin tins are a pain. I will use liners next time. However, making them in the mini cheesecake pans with removable bottoms, they pop out nicely. Watch out it doesn't go flying! The original recipe called for canned pumpkin pie mix. I like to make my own. If you want to buy it premade where the sugar, salt and spices are already in there, that works fine too.

Surprisingly I found that the Oreos are quite time consuming. First you have to scrape out all the fillings and then process the cookies. I only have a mini food processor. That is probably why it took so long since I had to process it in five batches. Perhaps I should ask Santa this year for a regular size food processor like the kind they use on Iron Chef America, Top Chef and Chopped. After processing, I sifted it just to be sure I wasn't leaving any big cookie chunks in there.


Pumpkin Oreo Cheesecake Bites
Inspired by Hoopfinity's Happenings

Makes 24 bites

Oreo Cookie Crust

1 bag Oreo cookies, fillings removed

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (113 g)

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

2 1/2 tsp. instant coffee

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line mini muffin tins with paper liners or spray mini cheesecake tin ( 12 with removable bottoms) with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Process Oreo cookies and instant coffee into a fine powder. Mix in melted butter and chocolate chips.

3. Press the Oreo mixture into mini cheesecake tin or mini muffin pan.

Pumpkin Pie Layer

1 can (15 oz.) pureed pumpkin (100% pumpkin)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/3 cup evaporated milk

1 egg, room temperature

1. In a large bowl mix pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices together. Using an electric mixer, beat in evaporated milk and egg until smooth and creamy.

2. Pour filling onto Oreo crust. Tap pan on counter so the filling evens out.

Note: If mixing your own pumpkin pie spice, combine 2 Tbsp. cinnamon, 2 Tbsp. nutmeg, 2 tsp. ground ginger, 1 1/2 tsp. allspice. Then measure the correct amount out.

Cheesecake Layer

1 brick of cream cheese (8 oz.)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 egg whites, room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbsp. all purpose flour

1. In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg whites, vanilla and flour together until smooth and creamy.

2. Pour cheesecake mixture over the pumpkin layer in cheesecake tin. Tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles.

3. Place cheesecake bites in preheated oven. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until they are set.

4. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Refrigerate cheesecakes in the pans for at least 2 hours.

5. Unmold cheesecake bites.

Caramel Sauce

Recipe inspired by the book Baked- New Frontiers in Baking

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup glucose

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Stir brown sugar, 1/2 cup water and glucose together in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium high and cook until it boils. Boil for 10 minutes. (If caramel starts to smoke, remove the saucepan from burner and turn the heat down.) Remove from heat. Slowly whisk in the heavy cream. Return pan to low heat and whisk until clumps dissolve. Whisk in vanilla when caramel is smooth. It is then ready to use. If storing, cool to room temperature and store in an airtight container in fridge up to 5 day.