Pumpkin Cheesecake

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, readers! I wish you and your family a very happy calorie-filled, no-carb-left-behind Thanksgiving! This evening was very busy for Nate and I. He made roasted sweet potatoes and decorated the house while I prepared Green Bean Casserole (following the tried-and-true recipe on the back of the French Fried Onions can, subbing fresh green beans for canned) and pumpkin cheesecake!

This cheesecake honestly couldn't be easier to make! You mix everything up with a blender and bake it for an hour. That's it. Awesome right? Who wants to worry about complicated recipes when they have a billion other things to worry about? Not me, that's for damn sure.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

3 8oz packages of softened cream cheese
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl or your handy stand mixer, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Unfortunately for me, I did not allow my cream cheese to soften enough and completely blew the motor on my hand mixer. It was a devastating experience, mainly because I was in the middle of whipping my cream cheese and now had to transfer all my cream cheese into the stand mixer.

Once cream cheese is light and fluffy, mix in pumpkin puree, eggs, and spices until combined. This took about 10 minutes to incorporate everything completely.

Mix in flour and vanilla until combined.

Pour the filling into a prepared crust. The great thing about this filling is it will fill up two 9 inch pie crusts! Who doesn't love two cheesecakes?

I stupidly only bought one graham cracker crust but I thankfully have a pantry-full of graham crackers just aging.

Pie Crust

8 graham crackers
4 Tbsp butter, melted
3 Tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, break up graham crackers. I used a potato masher. It worked well to mash into semi-uniform yet solid-ish pieces. They weren't teeny-tiny like they would be had I used a food processor but it should taste ok.

Mix in melted butter and sugar until the graham crackers start to come together.

Press into a pie pan.

Bake for 5 minutes.

Now for baking the now-crusted cheesecakes:

Bake the cheesecakes at 350 for 1 hour. After an hour, turn the oven off but keep the cheesecakes in the oven.

Allow cheesecakes to come to room temperature before placing in the fridge for 6-8 hours or overnight.

These cheesecakes are heavenly and a nice nod to the traditional pumpkin pie without being drab and boring.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's recipe for red chile sauce!