Salted Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars With Pretzel Streusal

 It was weekly baking time here at The Hardscrabble Home the other day.  Gone were the last of the lemon squares I made last week.  (No, I didn't post that one, but I will soon.)  I looked through my family cookbook (I'll show you that soon, too) and came up with nothing but bits and pieces of other recipes that I thought could all come together to make one really good recipe.  So, that's what I did.  

I mulled over some ideas in my head and called my fellow baker Kimmie.  Kimmie is known for her awesome pie baking skills.  That and her past ability to sneak up silently (like a ninja) behind an unsuspecting coworker and scare the living daylights out of them (me).  Those were the days!   

I told her what I had in mind with the four distinct layers of this dessert.  Then together she and I talked it through, tweaked it here and there and came up this...behold the good-lookingness of this sweet treat.... 

  See the different layers?  Yum.

I took parts of three different recipes to come up with this one.  I used the base of a lemon square.  The cream cheese layer came from my Aunt Lorraine's strawberry pretzel dessert recipe.  Her recipe also inspired the pretzel streusal as a topping.  The apple and caramel layers were inspired by an apple pizza recipe.  So, much inspiration, a little imagination and some additional tweaking by Kimmie & Steffie made this recipe successful.    

Without further ado, here is our recipe for:


Salted Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars with Pretzel Streusal
by The Hardscrabble Home 

The Base: 
2 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup melted unsalted butter  

1. Grease a 9 x 13 pan and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

1. Mix together flour, powdered sugar and melted butter.
2. Press the dough into the bottom of your pan, forming a crust.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and ready your cream cheese layer.

Cream Cheese Layer: 
2 - 8 oz. softened Cream Cheese
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla 

1. Using electric mixer, mix cream cheese with sugar and vanilla.   
2. Spread gently over the shortbread base (which at this point has cooked for 15 minutes.)

Apple Layer:
4 Apples
3 T. flour
1/2 cup brown sugar 

1. Peel and dice four apples.  I used what I had on hand which was Red Delicious.  Others prefer different types of apples to use for baking, but Red Delicious is what I usually buy and it works well for me in baking.  But, it's "Baker's Choice" when it comes to the apples.
2. Toss the apples with flour and brown sugar.  
3. Arrange apple mixture over the cream cheese layer.

Pretzel Streusal:
Mini Pretzels approx.40
1/2 cup flour
1/8 cup brown sugar 
4 T. unsalted butter 

1. Crush pretzels.  You want about a cup of them, more or less depending on your streusal preferance.  
2. Mix one cup of crushed pretzels with flour and brown sugar.  Add unsalted butter to pretzel mixture and work it together with your hands or a pastry cutter, but hands work best.
3. Sprinkle pretzel streusal over apple layer.
4. Place pan back into 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes.  Once baked, cut into bars, cool slightly, and cut into bars.

Topping:
Caramel Ice Cream Topping
Sea Salt

1. Drizzle caramel sauce (I used jarred sauce but feel free to make your own if you have a good recipe for it) and then add a few cranks of sea salt over it all.  

That is it.  You are all done and ready to dig in.  I didn't try freezing this one because I gave half of the pan away to taste testers.  They loved it.  I hope you do, too!  

Here's one more look... 

And one more for good measure...

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Autumn Pumpkin Roll

It's Autumn!  You know what THAT means!  Time to stock up on pumpkin before it's gone until next year.  If I was as domestic as my friend Brigette, I'd use pumpkin from an actual pumpkin and not from a can.  Someday I will, just not today.

In celebration of this wonderful season we are going to make a pumpkin roll.  Not just any old pumpkin roll, but an Autumn Pumpkin Roll.  (There's really no difference I just felt like dressing up the name a bit.)  

When I was planning on what to bake today involving pumpkin my first thought was to make my recipe for "Great Pumpkin Dessert".  Alas, I did not have all the ingredients for that.  I skimmed through the ingredients I did have on hand, and settled on a pumpkin roll.  

I'll let you in on a little secret first, after I started making this recipe I realized I was short on sugar.  I considered calling my neighbor and asking to borrow a 1/2 cup of sugar, but thought that would be so cliche.  Instead, I used 1/2 cup of regular sugar and a 1/2 cup of brown sugar.  It didn't hurt the recipe or it's outcome one bit.  Still tastes delicious.  It's nice to know that you can swap one ingredient with another and still have yummy results. 

Now, let's gather those ingredients, shall we?

Grab 1 cup of sugar, 2/3 cup of pumpkin, 1 tsp. lemon juice, 3/4 cup of all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp.  salt, 1 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, 1 8 oz. cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter and 3 eggs. 

Beat eggs at high speed for five minutes.  Gradually add sugar, beating well.  Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice.  Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and salt.  Stir dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture, combining well.  Spoon batter into a greased and floured 10 x 15 x 1 inch jelly roll pan, spreading evenly over bottom.  Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

 There is mine ^ all baked and ready to flip onto it's powdered sugar towel.  That's the next step.  Use a clean kitchen towel sprinkled with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar to turn your cake onto after baking.  I prefer using a cut piece of ticking fabric.  Roll up the towel/cake in a jelly roll style, starting at the smaller end.  Cool.

While your cake ^ is cooling, prepare your cream cheese filling.  Combine 1 cup powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter and vanilla.  Beat until smooth and creamy. 

After your cake has cooled, unroll and spread the cream cheese mixture, covering cake completely.  I like to use my angled cake spatula for this step.  It's great for frosting cakes, too!  

Now, it's time to roll your pumpkin roll up, this time WITHOUT the towel.  I've heard of people who roll it up with the towel and wonder what they did wrong.  Can you imagine? 

Chill your pumpkin roll in the refrigerator.  Then slice and serve.  Here's your finished pumpkin roll.

 Autumn Pumpkin Roll
by The Hardscrabble Home

3 eggs
1 c. sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
1 8oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup butter

Beat eggs at high speed for five minutes.  Gradually add sugar, beating well.  Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice.  Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and salt.  Stir dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture, combining well.  Spoon batter into a greased and floured 10 x 15 x 1 inch jelly roll pan, spreading evenly over bottom.  Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

After baking, use a clean kitchen towel sprinkled with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar to turn your cake onto.  I prefer using a cut piece of ticking fabric.  Roll up the towel/cake in a jelly roll style, starting at the smaller end.  Let cool. 
  
While your cake is cooling, prepare your cream cheese filling.  Combine 1 cup powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter and vanilla.  Beat until smooth and creamy.  Unroll cooled cake and spread the cream cheese mixture on it, covering cake completely. Roll up your pumpkin roll, wrap in plastic wrap, chill and then serve.  


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