Here’s a rich, soft, bakery-style recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Dream Bars — a creamy pumpkin base, a sweet tangy cream-cheese swirl, buttery crust, and all the warm spices. These taste like pumpkin pie + cheesecake + cake bars all in one. 🎃🍰✨
🎃 Pumpkin Cream Cheese Dream Bars
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 box yellow cake mix (dry)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
- 1 egg
Pumpkin Layer
- 1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup evaporated milk (or half-and-half)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Layer
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
Instructions
1. Preheat
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish.
2. Make the crust
- In a bowl, combine cake mix + melted butter + 1 egg.
- Mix until a soft dough forms.
- Press evenly into the bottom of the pan.
3. Make the pumpkin layer
Whisk together:
- pumpkin
- eggs
- evaporated milk
- sugars
- spices
- vanilla
Pour evenly over the crust.
4. Make the cream cheese layer
Beat together:
- cream cheese
- sugar
- egg
- vanilla
Drop spoonfuls over the pumpkin layer and swirl gently with a knife.
5. Bake
Bake 40–50 minutes, until the center is mostly set and the edges are slightly pulling from the sides.
Let cool at least 1 hour, then chill for clean slices.
⭐ Tips
- For extra swirl: double the cream cheese layer.
- For a firmer bar: use 3 eggs in the pumpkin layer instead of 2.
- Add a graham cracker sprinkle on top before baking for crunch.
- Serve cold or room temperature — both are delicious.
If you want, I can also give you:
🍂 Pumpkin cheesecake bars
🍂 Pumpkin gooey butter cake
🍂 No-bake pumpkin dream bars
