Last year, my side of the family gathered at our little house for a huge Thanksgiving dinner. We shoved two large and two smaller tables together, draped several table clothes over the whole thing, and broke out the chaffing dishes for the biggest dinner party our house has ever seen. To accompany the traditional pumpkin and apple pies, I made a pumpkin cheesecake that brought oohs and aahs from the entire table.When I first stumbled across this recipe, I thought baking a cheesecake would be much too involved a process for me. In the end, I love cheesecake and pumpkin, so I gave it a try. Although the original recipe says that you can make it without the use of a springform pan, I recommend buying a cheap one anyway. (I say a cheap one, because really how many times are you going to make cheesecake?)
This year, I'll be making this recipe again, but for Matt's side of the family. Hopefully it will become a Thanksgiving tradition!
Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake
Ingredients
18 gingersnaps, crushed (about 2 cups)
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 pkg. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Dash ground cloves
Directions
1. Heat oven to 350 F. Combine gingersnap crumbs, nuts and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
2. Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla with mixer until blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each just until blended. Remove 1 cup batter and set aside. Stir remaining sugar, pumpkin and spices into large bowl of batter. (At the end of this process, you should have a large bowl of pumpkin batter and a smaller bowl of plain cheesecake batter.)
3. Spoon half the pumpkin batter into crust; top with spoonfuls of half the plain batter. Spoon in the remaining pumpkin batter, followed again by spoonfuls of the plain batter. Swirl with knife for a marbled effect.
4. Bake 45 minutes or until center is almost set. (If you cook it even a little too long, the top will crack as it's cooling, but it won't affect the taste as far as I can tell.) Cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours.
Directions
1. Heat oven to 350 F. Combine gingersnap crumbs, nuts and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
2. Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla with mixer until blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each just until blended. Remove 1 cup batter and set aside. Stir remaining sugar, pumpkin and spices into large bowl of batter. (At the end of this process, you should have a large bowl of pumpkin batter and a smaller bowl of plain cheesecake batter.)
3. Spoon half the pumpkin batter into crust; top with spoonfuls of half the plain batter. Spoon in the remaining pumpkin batter, followed again by spoonfuls of the plain batter. Swirl with knife for a marbled effect.
4. Bake 45 minutes or until center is almost set. (If you cook it even a little too long, the top will crack as it's cooling, but it won't affect the taste as far as I can tell.) Cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours.
