Pumkin Roll

Here I go again!

Pumpkin.

Are you sick of it yet?

A friend of mine asked me a while ago to help her make a pumpkin roll for her hubby who loves them and hasn’t had one for a couple years. They are both relatively new to Wisconsin, and honestly, I had never heard of a pumpkin roll! It’s apparently a regional thing or I’ve been left in the dark for far too long.

We planned it all out, Rachel and Lacey came over to help bake this scrumptious, delectable treat!

Actually, we made two!

I was a bit worried about  making these, since I’d never done it before. It’s easy enough to mix ingredients together, but to flip these babies out of the pan AND roll them up, then unroll them, fill them with cream cheese, sugary goodness, and ROLL THEM BACK UP!
It sounds like a lot of work.
But in the end, I was pleasantly surprised as to how easy it was. In fact, I want to make another one!

Pumpkin rolls go perfectly with coffee, by the way.

Pumpkin Roll
Note: My friend Rachel sent this recipe to me via Facebook. Prior to that, I don’t know where it came from.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Filling:
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs on high speed for 5 minutes. Slowly add the white sugar, pumpkin, and lemon juice and mix well. Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, ginger, and nutmeg and mix until combined. Batter will be thick, but spreadable.

Line the bottom of a large jellyroll pan with parchment paper and grease and flour the sides. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup powdered sugar on terrycloth towel. (I used a regular kitchen towel) I lied the towel right on top of the pan and flipped the pumpkin sheet out, that way it would just fall onto the towel and not all over the table. Gently roll with the towel rolled up inside it as well and let it cool in the fridge.

While roll is cooling, prepare filling by mixing cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. When roll has cooled, unroll it and spread the filling evenly. Roll it back up and refrigerate. It’s really hard to not crack the dough when rolling but if it does don’t stress because the cracks fix themselves when it refrigerates. Also, slightly dampening the cloth helps. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into 1 inch slices to serve.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Forgive me for the classy phone pic of the this pumpkin bar. (yes, it was done on my Pyrex lid) It’s the only thing I had to take a picture with. At least of the end result.

So, it’s almost fall. Ahh.. I wish it lasted longer. It is, by far, my favorite time of year. My husband and I were married on the first day of Autumn almost six years ago now. The colors of the trees. The smell of leaves and baking. Oh, and did I mention Pumpkin Spice Lattes??? Have I mentioned I have an love obsession with pumpkin….anything. Pumpkin bars. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin coffee. Pumpkin creamer (for the coffee!). Pumpkin smoothies. The color, pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. PUMPKIN!!!!!!!! (you know how when you repeat the same word over and over it looks funny. Pumpkin just did that for me..lol)

So, as you may guess, there will many more pumpkin recipes before the season is through (and it hasn’t even started yet!!!!)

I made these for a picnic with our Sunday School class. There were many treats there, including some Pina Colada Cupcakes. Thank you Franci!!! They were delicious! (as were all the others..there were just too many to name!)

Besides being easy to make, they feed a lot of people. Unless you’re me and eat half the pan first…okay, maybe not half the pan…but I ate quite a few! Seriously though.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars (from Eat Live Run)

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 Tbsp  heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
24 oz cream cheese, at room temperature

For graham cracker crust:

18 graham crackers (two sleeves from the box)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

Graham crackers, melted butter and sugar

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place graham cracker in a resealable bag and crush using a rolling pin or your hands. I’ve always found this to be the best technique.
When the cracker are coarse crumbs, pour them in to a medium bowl. Add the sugar and melted butter and mix well. Pat into a 15×17 inch jelly roll pan, lined with parchment paper. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove and reduce heat to 325 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream and vanilla.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt. Beat until light and fluffy. (I used my whisk attachment for extra fluffiness!) Slowly add the pumpkin mixture, mixing until there are no lumps and the mixture is perfectly smooth,

Pour batter onto prepared crust. Bake for 50 minutes or until edges begin to pull away slightly. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Garnish with either homemade whipped cream, redi-whip, or cool whip. Whatever your preference.

Before being baked

Enjoy!

After being baked