Monday, November 23, 2009

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

Pumpkin Pie and Cheesecake. Together as one. Brilliant.
I was going to post the two desserts that I made ahead of time for Thanksgiving in the same post, but I took way too many pictures of this cheesecake and they turned out pretty good, so it gets its own post.
I saw this recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine and the picture was just so gorgeous, plus it sounded delicious, so I made it right away.
I didn't know what I was going to do with an entire cheesecake though, so I divided the recipe into 5ths (since there were 5 eggs and I didn't want to half an egg) and then doubled the 1/5th, so I made 2/5ths of the recipe. (Sounds more confusing than it was).
I made 4 mini cheesecakes with my 3 or 4-inch springform pans. I had to taste a tiny bit and then I took them to my hubby's work where they were a hit.

The thing that really got me excited about this dessert is the fact that it really doesn't have a million calories or a trillion grams of fat in it, because most of the filling is pumpkin puree.
If you have 1/14th of the normal sized cheesecake it has less than 350 calories and 16 grams of fat. (The saturated fat is high, but something has to give, right?)
That seems very unusual for a cheesecake type dessert that doesn't claim to be low-fat.
Anyway, you probably think I don't care about calories and fat because I make so much dessert, but I do. I am a healthy eater that loves to bake.
Anyway, enough about all that boring nutrition information.
You must make this dessert.
The crust is made up of gingersnap crumbs with a little bit of brown sugar.
The texture is amazing. It has the flavor of pumpkin pie, but the filling is so smooth and light. It is the texture of cheesecake with the flavor of pumpkin pie. It is perfect.
The cranberry topping is amazing with it. If you crave pumpkin and cranberry together, this is your dessert. The cheesecake isn't overly sweet, but with the tart cranberry sauce it is magnificent. I am making a full-sized Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake for Thanksgiving. You should too.


Recipe for Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake


7 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh Mary Ann, those are beautiful! They look amazingly delicious, and I love the way you garnished them. They definitely deserved their own post!

Amanda said...

Mary Ann! Those are just gorgeous, bet you had a hard time picking which pictures to post. Stunning!

Joyce said...

The best of two desserts:) Looks delicious. Happy Thanksgiving.
Joyce

Meghan said...

I've never seen a cranberry topping for a pumpkin treat - great idea! I love this; pumpkin cheesecake is so good and this one looks fantastic, especially with a gingersnap crust!

Unknown said...

Those photos are gorgeous Mary Ann! I have some mini springforms and I think I just may need to give this one a shot. Thanks so much for sharing - these were definitely worthy of an entire post :)

Steph said...

I love how you decorated your cheesecakes. They look so good! I've never had pumpkin cheesecake.. stupid pumpkin pie totally scared me away from it, but it looks really tempting!

Katrina said...

Yum! And I love the pretty red cranberry topping!