Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake

 

I am honestly starting to believe that time goes through a black hole and is never to be seen again. That is the only explanation as to why it seems like no time has passed and yet it’s already mid-November.

Today marks the 8^th week of 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats, a wonderful blog hop hosted by Brenda.

I absolutely love the holidays and all holiday food. But I have a strict flavor calendar. Like pumpkin in the months of October and November only and maple in late November and all of December. Gingerbread flavors are strictly for December only.

So because it is still November I’m going to post another pumpkin recipe. I hope to get a few more in before the end of the month.

 

Now I know I just said pumpkin is should stay within the October/November time frame, but some people are cooky and like eating pumpkin in December as well, which is why I’m including this pumpkin cheesecake for the Christmas Treats blog hop.

Now these were supposed to be bars, but I liked the idea of turning this cheesecake-pie combo into a circle because I have a spring form pan and that would make getting the cheesecake out so much easier.

I don’t have many recipes for cheesecake because it’s not really something I think about often or order when I’m at a restaurant. However, every time I do make cheesecake I wonder why I don’t make it more often. Quite frankly I can’t think of a good reason not to make cheesecake.

 

The filling is oh so creamy and soft and just mmmmmm. And the pumpkin shines through just enough. I have no complaints about the filling at all. If this was cooked by itself I would eat the entire thing with a fork.

The crust was a nice surprise. Most cheesecakes ask for a cookie/graham cracker crust, but this one is more of a pie crust, which I loved. I suck at making pie crusts and they never taste any good. But this one was yummy, yummy in my tummy.

The only complaint about this recipe was the cream cheese frosting. That thing liquefied so easily and I don’t understand what happened! It set up perfectly in the bowl, but as soon as I put it on the cheesecake it just became liquid. But don’t let that deter you from making this luscious dessert!

 

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake
Adapted from Eats Well with Others
Makes one 8-inch round cheesecake

Ingredients
Crust
¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
Pinch of salt
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 egg yolk

Filling
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sugar
¼ cups + 2 tbsp. pumpkin puree
1 tbsp. pure maple syrup
¼ tsp. pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. ginger
1 large egg, room temperature

Frosting
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
2 oz. cream cheese, softened
¾ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Directions
Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch round spring form pan with tin foil.

For the crust: place flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Rub the butter in with the tips of your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Mix in the egg yolk until the dough starts to come together. Pat the dough into a uniform disk and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes. Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper. Press the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Dock the top of the crust with a fork and cover with tin foil. Bake for about 10 minutes. Take off the tin foil and bake for another 10 minutes. Allow the crust to cool as you make the filling.

Turn oven temperature down to 300 F.

For filling: beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until completely combined. In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, syrup, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Pour mixture into the bowl with the cream cheese and sugar. Mix everything together until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Whisk in egg.

Pour filling into the prepared crust and bake for about 20 minutes or until the edges are set and the center jiggles slightly. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

For the frosting: beat together the cream cheese and the butter until fluffy. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Mix until smooth. Spread frosting over chilled cheesecake. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

All right, so remember those Chocolate Kiss Krispies I shared will y’all last week? Remember what I said about not going out and buying that strawberry drink mix just for the glaze? Well, you probably should have because I have a recipe that will delight the artificial strawberry lover in you. (That is made to be a good thing).

I remember after reading this post on Sprinkle Bakes I immediately saved the recipe. It’s a No Bake Strawberry Milk Cheesecake. I always liked chocolate milk as a kid, but I did try strawberry milk every once in a while. And although it has been several years since I have had strawberry milk, I still remember the taste, but only because of Neapolitan ice cream.

I planned on making this back in the Spring/Summer of last year, but I never got around to it. Then Peabody took up suggestions for birthday cake and she made the same cheesecake for her fiancé, so that’s when it clicked that I really need to get my act together and make this thing. That, plus the fact this cheesecake is pink and therefore perfect for Valentine’s Day.

 I would like to mention this is only my third cheesecake ever! My first was this delectable pumpkin cheesecake picked from the Cake Slice Bakers group and this amazing chocolate and peanut butter mousse cake, again from the Cake Slice Bakers.

This cheesecake isn’t really a cheesecake at all. At least it doesn’t taste that way. It just tasted like an ice cream cake, which is pretty dang awesome! The creamy batter (if I can call it that) it subtly sweet and tastes like childhood. And instead of making the funfetti crust Heather made, I decided to go with just a chocolate teddy graham crust because chocolate teddy grahams were all I had. I think the chocolate crust and strawberry milk filling is a great combination, though. I didn’t add the whipped cream on top, but if you did, this basically would be a Neapolitan ice cream cake.

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

Adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

Makes 6 cheesecake cups

Ingredients

Crust

50 g chocolate teddy graham crumbs

Pinch of salt

½ tbsp. sugar

2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Cheesecake

½ cup heavy whipping cream

4 oz. cream cheese, soft

¼ cup strawberry drink mix (such as Nestle Nesquick)

½ tbsp. sugar *

Directions

Line a muffin tin with six paper liners.

To turn the teddy grams into crumbs, just put them in a food processor and pulse until you get fine crumbs. If you don’t have a food processor, put the teddy grahams into a ziplock bag and crush with a rolling pin. Whisk together the crumbs, salt, and sugar in a small bowl. Pour in the melted butter and mix until the crumbs are moist. Place 1 ½ tbsp. of the crumb mixture into each paper liner.

In a large bowl, beat the heavy cream to soft peaks. Add the softened cream cheese and beat until combined. Sift in the strawberry milk powder and sugar. *I used 25% less sugar strawberry Nestle Nesquick, but if you use the full sugar, just omit the ½ tbsp. of sugar in the recipe. Fold the milk powder and sugar to combine. Evenly distribute the cheesecake filling between the six cups (I used a medium-small cookie scoop and put three dollops into each tin).

Freeze cheesecake cups for 2 hours, or until firm, before removing them from the tin. Let the cheesecake cup sit at room temperature for a few minutes before serving. Store uneaten cheesecake in the freezer.  

Cake slice Bakers - November 2011: Creamy Pumpkin Cheesecake

It’s the 20^th again and that means the Cake Slice Bakers are posting November’s cake. You may (or may not) have noticed that I did not get a chance to post last month’s cake, time just got away from me. This month I promised myself I would make the cake chosen from our new book The Cake Book by Tish Boyle. All of the cakes in this book sound incredible and there are over 300 pages of recipes. It’s broken down into Angel Food, Chiffon, and Sponge Cakes; Pound and Coffee Cakes; Butter- and Oil-Based Cakes; Fruit-Based Cakes; Flourless Cakes; Cheesecakes; Mousse and Ice Cream Cakes; and Meringue Cakes. As you can see, this book touches on EVERYTHING! There’s even an entire section devoted to different frostings and toppings.

For November’s cake, the bakers decided on a cheesecake recipe. I know it’s not the conventional cake, but it just looked so good (there are not many pictures in this book, but the few that are shown are all beautiful). I have never made cheesecake prior to this, and I was a little nervous because I have heard horror stories of water leaking into the pan and cracked tops. To my surprise, I had absolutely no trouble baking this cheesecake (except for the two trips to the grocery store at 7 in the morning to get forgotten ingredients), and it turned out really well.

As mentioned above, I did in fact make two trips to the grocery store at 7 am because I thought I had four eggs, but I had forgotten to take into account that my dad eats eggs every day. Then, when I was portioning out the cream cheese, I realized that I was about 200 grams short of cream cheese. And even after all of those trips to the grocery store, I still forgot to buy pecans for the crust! Well I wasn’t going to go to the grocery store for the third time in 30 minutes, so I improvised; I made a graham cracker crust with brown sugar and cinnamon.

The filling was the creamiest things ever. I ended up eating my slice(s) kinda slow and I could never finish the cheesecake, it was kind of rich, but not overwhelmingly so. This cheesecake is also very forgiving I believe. I realized after I had put the better into the pan, I had not used enough cream cheese! So, I ended up only putting around maybe 530 grams of cream cheese instead of the full 567 grams. I also used 1/3 less fat cream cheese because that was the kind I had on hand and when I bought the second tub, I decided just to stick with the same cream cheese. But really, I don’t think this cheesecake could have gotten any better, well, except I did omit the sugared pumpkin seeds because I couldn’t find raw pumpkin, let alone any kind of pumpkin seeds.

I’m really glad that the Cake Slice Bakers chose to do a cheesecake this month because it gave me a chance to do something I’ve never done before. Check out how the other members of CSB did this month here.

Brown Sugar Graham Cracker Crust

Ingredients
9 graham cracker sheets
3 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Wrap a two layers of tin foil around a 9 in spring form pan. Lightly spray the inside of the pan with cooking spray.
2. Break up graham cracker crumbs and place them in a food processor. Pulse until all of the crackers are broken up and become finely ground. Add in the sugar and the cinnamon and pulse until combined. Drizzle in the melted butter and pulse until the crumb mixture becomes moist and starts to pack together.
3. Empty the packed crumb mixture into the prepared pan. Using a cup or something flat, press the crumb mixture down into the pan, leaving an even layer on the bottom. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the crust has browned a little. Take out of the oven and let cool while you make the filling.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling
from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book

Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin puree
½ cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ pound cream cheese, soft
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp corn starch
4 eggs

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, heavy cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese with the paddle attachment on medium-low speed until it becomes creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary. Gradually add in both sugars until fully incorporated. Add the pumpkin mixture and beat until blended. Add the corn starch and mix until just combined. Drop the eggs in one at a time, making sure to fully beat one before another gets mixed in. Scrape down the bowl as you go.
3. Scrape the batter into the spring form pan. Place the pan in a roasting dish and place on the middle rack of the oven. Carefully pour in enough hot water into the pan for it to rise about an inch up the sides of the pan. Bake the cheesecake in the water bath for 70-80 minutes, or until the outside edges are set and the very center is just a little wobbly. The cheesecake will set completely as it cools.
4. Immediately after taking the cheesecake out of the oven, take it out of its water bath, put it on a cooling wrack, and run a paring knife around the edges. This will help prevent those pesky cracks on the top of the cheesecake. Let the cake cool completely before storing it in the fridge. Chill the cheesecake in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before slicing.