10 recipes in 10 days...Pumpkin cheesecake. In one hand you have pumpkin pie. In the other hand you have cheesecake. Now put your hands together and you have one of the best desserts, ever. Period. This was my first time ever making a cheesecake. A real cheesecake. I've done the "no bake" versions before and they were ok. This is one dessert that I will make again and again and again. It was that good. I was confident enough to let my co-workers try it as well. I was nervous making this because this is the one recipe I was looking forward to the most. And the last new recipe for a while. And after a few bad tries at some new recipes (aka: pork tenderloin and banana bon bons) this one I had to get right!
I started it in the morning so it would be ready to eat that night. Once the batter was made and poured into the crust there was a lot leftover. Since no one was around I decided to test the batter, several times. Trust me, it was delicious. There was some left over crust so I made a few mini cheesecakes in our muffin tin. Again, there was a lot of left over batter so I made some minis with crust and a few without the crust. The cook time on those was a little off, but they turned out ok. Even the minis without the crust.
Back to the main event...I read a tip to shut the oven off a little early and let the cheesecake cool off in the warm oven. That helped cool it down without drastically changing the temperature and cracking the cake. This worked perfectly. After it reached room temperature I put it in the fridge for several hours until we were ready to cut into it. Just like pumpkin pie we added a little whipped cream to the top. I'm not sure it needed it, but it didn't hurt. In my best Graham Elliot (Masterchef judge) impression, I took a forkful of pumpkin cheesecake, lifted it up to eye level, scooped it out, smelled it as I brought it close to my mouth, and closed my eyes as I ate. Cheesecake Factory has nothing on this pumpkin cheesecake! Find the recipe right here.
And that's a wrap on our fall 10/10 challenge!
