Thanksgiving Post #4: Double-Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake

It should not have taken me this long to get this post posted. It’s so worthy of attention, but you know how things go. I’ve had a lot going on in the past couple of weeks, including starting a new class at school, having a client at work pass away very suddenly, and of course all the holiday stuff, like Christmas shopping and decorating.

Maybe you could consider this an early Christmas post, then. It could very easily go on the table for Christmas, and in fact I hope it does at my mom and dad’s house. So yeah, this is an early Christmas post.

First is the graham cracker crust. I’m glad I printed out the recipe, because the link inexplicably takes me to a rigatoni recipe now. But it’s simple enough, so I guess you can’t really screw it up. Last year I used store-bought graham cracker crust, but this year I decided to do my own. I’m glad I did.

First, crush a package of graham crackers. I tried to do this by hand for about 6, maybe 7 seconds, before deciding that the food processor was the way to go.

Add a little sugar and some melted butter. It still just looks like crumbs, but now they’re soft and warm.

Press the crumbs into a pie pan (ungreased, there’s enough butter than you don’t need any grease). This was actually a lot harder than I expected because it didn’t stick together as well as I expected. But it worked out with a little patience.

Recipe said to either refrigerate or bake it. I chose to refrigerate. Now for the cheesecake filling!

This is a recipe that was recommended to me last year by a friend. I was skeptical, telling her that hubby doesn’t like pumpkin pie. “Even people who don’t like pumpkin love this cheesecake,” she insisted, “Try it, seriously!” So I did. Hubby loved it, and of course I am a sucker for any cheesecake, so it’s on the permanent holiday list now.

First layer: regular cheese cake stuff. Cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Spoon half the mixture into the crust.

To the rest, add pumpkin (just a 1/2 cup, set aside the rest of the can for the dogs), ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

And spread this mixture on top of the first layer.

After it bakes, it looks like this.

And here it is. So easy, yet so good. Man, I love cheesecake. And the pumpkin flavor in this is present, yet subtle, so even those pumpkin-haters won’t hate it. Kind of like how I like banana bread even though I hate bananas, I guess.

I definitely recommend this recipe, so I’m glad that my friend convinced me to try it last year!