You know what I'm craving? A little perspective. That's it. I'd like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective. Can you suggest a good wine to go with that? --Ratatouille (Pixar, 2007)

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Putting a spin on a classic--Pumpkin Cheesecake

Hey Guys!
Back with another quality recipe in the hopes that it'll help you out in the upcoming holiday season.
Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. While it's a great holiday for anyone, Thanksgiving can be an even better holiday for a chef. Since it centers mainly around the family dinner, Thanksgiving is a great place to show off any new recipes you have. In the interest of bettering your Thanksgiving spread, I'll show you how I put a spin on my grandma's classic cheesecake recipe.
As usual in the fall season, the addition of pumpkin flavor into everything edible seems to be ubiquitous with everything culinary related. Not that I like to jump on the bandwagon but...my newest recipe is for a pumpkin cheesecake. My changes to the original cheesecake recipe are simple and easy, but yield a tasty result. My new recipe is as follows:

PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 375.
Cheesecake--
16 oz Cream Cheese (2 8 oz packs)
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 Tsp Lemon Juice
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup of canned pumpkin (NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING)

NOTE: You may want to double or multiply this by 1.5 just because your batter won't quite fill all the way to the top and since cheesecake doesn't rise, you may want a little more batter just to get a full, large cake

Crust:
Graham cracker crumbs
4 oz (1/2 stick) of butter

The recipe is simple--Beat the cream cheese in a mixer until fluffy. Then, one by one, add in all of the other ingredients except the pumpkin and mix thoroughly. Finally, add in the cup of pumpkin, stirring whilst adding it in. Hopefully your batter will look something like this:


Now here's the catch. While you COULD make this batter into a normal cheesecake, I prefer to do it my own way--cupcakes. The newest big fad, cupcakes are becoming more attractive than large cakes just because they allow you to eat something nice and rich but not overdo it. Thus, a dense dessert like cheesecake does very well with cupcakes.
The final step before baking you cakes is the crust. Combine your crumbs with the melted butter and simply press your crumbs into the bottom of your cupcake tins like so:

Once your tins are prepped, pour batter into tins until they are filled most of the way-- cupcakes won't rise very much, they're cheesecake remember?

Once they're all ready to go, bake them in the oven for 15 minutes at 375, or until they appear to be solid and dry/no moving batter.
Good luck and I hope they turn out as good as mine!