Pumpkin Cheesecake

It’s Halloween and I’m helping to throw a Halloween party.  As part of that I’ve made a pumpkin cheesecake (recipe courtesy of Good Housekeeping).  It’s my first attempt at a real cheesecake and not one of those refrigerator varieties.  I think it’s turned out well, though I have yet to cut into it as the party is tonight.  The recipe isn’t overly complicated.  There is a water bath, but it’s nothing too hard to deal with.

This is the mise en place for the graham cracker crumb crust.

The graham cracker crumbs and sugar go into a bowl.

Then get mixed together with the melted butter until thoroughly coated and slightly moist.

The crust gets pressed into the bottom of a springform pan.  The crust then gets baked for about 10 minutes to set up.  After cooling on a wire rack, it is ready for the cheesecake batter.

Next up is the batter for the cheesecake.  This is the mise en place for it.

First, the cream cheese gets mixed until it is smooth.

Then the sugar gets mixed in.

The pumpkin, sour cream, and spices also get mixed in.

Finally, the eggs get mixed in, one at a time.

After making sure that the batter is thoroughly mixed, it goes into the springform pan.  The pan here is wrapped in aluminum foil and placed into a large roasting pan.  The foil helps make sure that no water gets into the cake since the springform pans isn’t water tight.

At this point, boiling water goes into the roasting pan and everything goes into the oven to bake for an hour to an hour and a half.

While the cake is baking, the topping can be made.  This is the mise en place for the topping.

It’s a quick and easy topping.  Everything just goes into a bowl.

And gets whisked together.  When the cheesecake is nearly done, the topping should be spread on top the cake.  The cheesecake goes back into the oven to bake for another five minutes.

Here is the final cheesecake cooling on a wire rack after baking.