Maybe I should work on that.
Well, here's a recipe for Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake.
Ok, so when I said food I make when I have the time, well, yeah I haven't had a lot of time lately. With my...er....part-time job. Yeah, so much hard work. 20 whole hours a week, man. Hey, most days I go to the gym! And I volunteer! ....well, three days a week. The other two days are for sleeping. And TV. And on the weekend? Eeeeeh, I do what I feel like. So cooking hasn't been a priority. But now that Winter has come and Ben Franklin's curse (aka Daylight Savings) has descended upon us (daylight savings my ass I came home today and it was dark. And when I got up this morning? It was also dark.) I will have more time in the evenings to cook stuff. Mostly dessert stuffs, as that's more my forte - I've avoided making dinners as I'm never home at dinnertime. Someone else makes it for me now. Damn it feels good to have dinner cooked for me.
Anyhoo.
I received a request via Halloween Card to start this thing up again, and what better way to celebrate the autumn with pumpkin. PUMPKIN EVERYTHING. Pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin. Pumpkin spice everything, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin canoli (yes, that's a thing. That I have eaten. Several times), pumpkin pie, pumpkin Crème brûlée, pumpkin bread...Pumpkins! I fricking love Pumpkin. I love actual pumpkins. I collect glass pumpkins. I love my cat, who is called Pumpkin. PUMPKIN!!!!
And since that Halloween Card Request, I figured I should start up this blog again with a Pumpkin Post. Now that it's...Thanksgiving.
Lots of good TV on this Fall, you guys.
So every Thanksgiving everyone always has Pumpkin Pie, but why go with the flow with your store-bought pie, when you can make something that tastes almost the same, but is waaay better (and has waaay more calories. Hurray!). I'm taking about Pumpkin Pie...cheesecake. Because EVERYTHING IS BETTER AS CHEESECAKE, YOU GUYS!
SOURCE: Taste of Home Bakeshop Favorites cookbook (pg 138)
YOU WILL NEED!
- Electric mixer - because no matter how long you wait for the cream cheese bricks to become room temperature, they'll still be hard as, well, bricks, anyway.
- Mixing bowl.
- A pre-made graham cracker pie crust, or, if you're really fancy, a Pam'ed glass pie plate, within which you'll put your handmade graham cracker crust, you fancy bastard making the rest of us look lazy...
- Measuring cups and spoons and shit, and a spatula. Especially a spatula.
- 3 (yes, three) 8oz bricks of cream cheese.
- 1 Cup o' sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup Pumpkin-in-a-can (unflavored pumpkin puree)
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
INSTRUCTIONS!
Right-o, start by heating up your oven to 350 degrees. Done that? Is it 350 degrees? Are you sure, cuz my oven is a lying liar who lies. Better let it heat up for a while.
1. First, make sure your bricks o' cream cheese are room temperature. Do not just take them from the fridge and try to mash them with your electric mixer. Learn from my mistakes. So, take your room temperature cream cheese bricks, 1 cup of sugar, and the vanilla extract, and combine them in your mixing bowl. Mix together til they're smooth. Hopefully your mixer and mixing bowl combination are better than mine - you'll not end up covered in sugary cream-cheese chunks.
2. Once your vanilla-y, sugary cream cheese is smooth, mix in your eggs, again, mixing them til everything is smooth. Mix the eggs in at a fairly low speed, because apparently mixing them at a high speed causes bad things to happen - I wouldn't know, because if I did mix them together at a high speed, I'd end up with vanilla-sugary egg cream cheese mix all over me. Not that I did or anything...
3. Mix in your cup o' Pumpkin. I've found that most cans of pumpkin have at least two cups worth of pumpkin in to them, so rather than throw away a cup of pumpkin, I just made two pumpkin pie cheesecakes. That or you can plan on making something else with your cup o' pumpkin*. Also mix in your spices - your allspice, your cinnamon, and your nutmeg.
4. Pour your wonderful, orange colored mix into your pie tin with your crust (that's right, I'm not including a pie crust recipe here - it's literally just butter and crushed graham crackers....aw, damn it...). Then put it in the oven, which, by now should be 350 degrees. Hopefully.
5. If your oven is any good, let your cream cheese cake pie for 1 hour. Make sure the center is set and stuff.
6. Take your pie...cake...thing, out of the oven, try not to burn yourself like I always do, and let it cool on a wire rack for round about 15 minutes.
7. Cover in foil and put in the fridge overnight. Yup, you're gonna have to wait til morning to eat your delicious cheesecake. Pie. Thing. Deal with it.
8. EAT! Tis delicious.
LAST MADE: Today - they're in the fridge right now, as I type. I made two for Thanksgiving tomorrow.
RESULTS: Not sure with these two, but the first time I made these was around Halloween. Unfortunately, I did not follow the rule of letting my cream cheese be room temperature, and I accidentally mixed in the eggs with the cream cheese first. So the end result was that my cream cheese didn't smooth out, and it was all chunky. The end result was tasty - but the consistency was rather chunkier than I would've liked. But hey, it tasted like delicious pumpkin pie with cream cheese chunks, and it disappeared from the fridge pretty quick.
INJURIES: None yet.
FOR NEXT TIME: Make my own graham cracker crust like a fancy person.
*BONUS!
Got an extra cup o' pumpkin in your can o' pumpkin? Don't wanna just cover it with plastic to mask the smell and throw it away? (Like I totally...have not done. Ever). Well, put that extra cup o' pumpkin to good use for...
Pumpkin Crème brûlée!!
Source: Crème brûlée: More than 50 Decadent Recipes by Dominique & Cindy Duby, pg. 72
Follow all the usual instructions from the original Crème brûlée post here . However, use the following ingredients:
- 1 cup o' pumpkin
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- Granulated sugar, for the tops
Refrigerate overnight, and follow the usual instructions for making the tops.
RESULTS: Tasty - almost exactly like pumpkin pie filling.
INJURIES: None, but the tops of one almost caught fire when the baking tin warped and made the ramekin touch the coils whilst broiling in the oven. Made me wish I had a mini cooking blow-torch.
FOR NEXT TIME: Not sure - get myself a cooking torch, that's for sure.
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