Dear Autumn,

Can you please give me some fruit to eat? Like, yeah, I get it: Apples and Pears. Wooh, harvest festival 2k12 timez!*

But seriously, that’s not a real festival. Stop lying to the world, there’s no music there; There are no exclusive wristbands. Can’t you just, I dunno, steal peaches away from Summer, that sassy season has loads of other fruits, he doesn’t need peaches too. Winter has his priorities straight, he has citrus fruits as well as apples and pears. Yeah.

Thanks for the crunchy leaves though. and the butternut squash.

Izy.

*I hope you realise I don’t actually talk like that… :/ Although I do tend to incorporate ‘sassy’ into my sentences recently.

Ummm…this is the reason I’m making lemon baked goods now. In case you were wondering.

I’m just not very motivated by the whole apple-thing at the mo. I might get there, I might not, who knows. I eat apples all year round, so when it’s apple season, and everywhere is all: “apples, apples, APPLES!” I get a bit rebellious (…sassy, if you may) and just like, “no, you know what, I’m tired of you apples, leave me alone for a season already.”

These totally aren’t #farmtotable, even though I should be enjoying Autumn’s beautiful bounty of apples, I’m not, sorry. But I did put cheesecake into lemon blondies for you; I hope that makes up for my lack of seasonal motivation!

Now I literally have nothing entertaining to say, so I’ll let you look the rest of these (super ugly) photos (which I’m really sorry about, but I wasn’t motivated enough to re-shoot) before you read the recipe, in peace.

Notes

-If you really love the ‘cheesecake’ aspect, you can make more of it ( ) by increasing the amount of: cream cheese to 8oz and sugar (in the cheesecake swirl mixture) to 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp (63 g)

-Equally, if you hate the cheesecake part, just leave it out. They’re still delish without it, although I recommend glazing them with a simple lemon icing made with about 1/2 cup (50g) of powdered sugar with enough lemon juice and water added to it to make it into an icing which is thin enough to drizzle.

Cheesecake Swirl Lemon Blondies

Lemon Blondie batter adapted from Pillsbury; Cheesecake Swirl adapted from Alice Medrich

makes 12-16 blondies

for the cheesecake swirl:
6 oz (165g) cream cheese
1/4 cup (50g) sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon zest (optional )

For the Lemon Blondies:
6 tbsp (3oz / 84g) butter
1 cup (200g) sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp lemon zest
2 eggs
1 cup (130g) flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

Butter and flour a 8″ square baking pan, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

Prepare the Cheesecake Swirl batter: Combine all the cheesecake swirl ingredients in a small bowl, set aside.

Prepare the Lemon Blondie batter: In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Take off the heat and stir in the sugar, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice. Let cool a bit, then quickly whisk in the eggs. Stir in the flour and baking powder. Pour half of the blondie batter into the prepared pan, spreading it out evenly.

Pour the cheesecake mixture over the top, and spread out evenly. Dollop the remaining blondie batter into the pan on top of the cheesecake mixture. Take a butter knife and gently swirl the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes (they should be golden brown – unlike in my photos where I under baked them..oops). Let cool before cutting and serving.

Tagged as: cream cheese, easy, fruit, lemon