Cream Cheese Topped Pumpkin Bars

I have no idea what to call this dessert. I had another block of cream cheese that needed to be used up. I had an opened box of pumpkin puree that I had defrosted from the freezer. I got inspired by my 'Cream Cheese marbled Chocolate Cake' and made this up. Used a pumpkin cake batter, topped it with cream cheese mixture and swirled. I guess I swirled too much and it became like a topping on the top of the pumpkin cake. It does have some seeped into the batter so it is a filling and a topping I should say. Whatever it is, it tasted great it seems. I sent it away to my husband's office.

One Year Back: Masala Bread using Sourdough
Ingredients:
For the Cake Batter:
All Purpose Flour - 2 1/2 Cups
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 2 Cups
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
Vegetable Oil - 1/3 Cup
Pumpkin Puree - 1 1/3 Cup
Eggs - 2 Large

For the cheesecake topping:
Cream cheese - 8 Oz block at room temperature
Sugar - 1/3 Cup
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Egg - 1 large
Mini chocolate chips - 1/2 cup (You could regular semi sweet or milk chocolate chips and increase up to 1 cup)

Method:
Grease a 13 X 9 pan with vegetable oil spray. Line with parchment paper. Spray it again with vegetable oil spray. Easiest way to line is to lay the pan on the top of parchment paper and cut a line at 45 degrees at the corner so that when you place the parchment paper in the pan, the corners kind of interlock and sit neatly at the corner. Set the prepared pan aside. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

 In a bowl, beat the cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar till blended. Add the egg and beat till all are blended. Couple of small lumps of cream cheese is alright to remain. Stir in chocolate chips, vanilla. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat pumpkin puree, oil, sugar. Add the eggs and beat till incorporated. In another bowl, whisk flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir. Do not over mix. Add vanilla and fold in. Pour into the prepared pan. This batter is a bit thick and you will have to push the batter to cover the pan.
Top the batter with cream cheese mixture. Try to stay away from the edge of the pan. Take a knife and run through it to get the swirl and spread it all over the pan.
Bake for 30 - 35 minutes. Mine was done at 35 minutes. When I checked at 30,  it was still very jiggly. Cool in the pan on the wire rack. Cut when completely cool.

Notes:
You could add cinnamon and other spices to the cake batter if you wish. I did not do it on purpose. I wanted this to be more of a pumpkin chocolate cake rather than pumpkin spice cake. I cut them into 24 pieces and they were huge. You can easily make them into 35 servings. Left over cake should be refrigerated due to use of cream cheese. Just an FYI.

Coming to counting the calories..

 Enjoy!!