I think that people would make homemade cheesecake more often, if they knew how easy it is to make—especially because it’s usually so expensive to buy! This recipe is one of my favorite Fall desserts. For many years I have made it instead of traditional pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (it feeds more people than a pie), but I often make it more than once during the season because it’s so simple and delicious. The Spiced Wafers made with blackstrap molasses are a natural with this flavor profile AND because it’s made mostly from cream cheese, pumpkin, and eggs, it’s a cake that is totally on the approved breakfast list at my house!

For the crust:

Ingredients:
1 sleeve (about 24 cookies) of Spiced Wafers (I use Sweetzels)
3 Tbsp Butter, melted

How I make it:
– Pulse cookies in food processor until they become fine crumbs
– Pour in melted butter and continue to pulse until thoroughly mixed, scraping the sides and bottom of the processor once or twice as needed.
– Pour buttered crumbs into a springform pan and tamp down with your fingers or the flat bottom of a measuring cup until crumbs are evenly packed together
– Bake 350 for 10 minutes
– Wipe out food processor and carefully wipe off blade with paper towel and reassemble for making the batter.

For the batter:

Ingredients:
4 pkg (8 oz each) cream cheese (I always use Philadelphia brand), brought to room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 extra large eggs, brought to room temperature
8 oz pumpkin puree (I use canned)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Pinch of kosher salt

How I make it:
– Reduce oven temperature to 300
– Mix cream cheese, vanilla and sugar in food processor, scraping down sides, if needed until well combined.
– Add pumpkin puree and spices and pulse until mixed
– Break eggs into a measuring cup and lightly mix with a fork to break up the yolks, then add to food processor, gradually.
– Scrape down the sides of the food processor at least twice during the final mixing, to ensure a completely smooth consistency.
– Pour batter over crust and tap pan lightly to help eliminate air bubbles
– Bake 45 min to 1 hour or until firmly set around the edges but still a little loose in the middle
– Allow to cool at room temperature for 3 hours
– Refrigerate for 3-8 hours before serving

Variations:

– You can substitute the cup of cane sugar for your preferred sweetener. Cheesecake is a great dessert to use any crystalized or powdered sweeteners. I have not yet tried using a liquid sweetener in this recipe, so I don’t know how it might alter the consistency of the finished cake.
– If you really don’t want to use full fat cream cheese, this recipe also works well with substituting as much as half of the cream cheese (2 pkgs) with 1/3 Less Fat (Neufchatel) Cream Cheese, but still keep half of it regular cream cheese or your cheesecake will be very soft and not have the velvety mouthfeel characteristic of cheesecake.
– You can substitute 2 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice for the mixture of spices I use above.
– If you can’t get Philadelphia’s Original Sweetzels Spiced Wafers, you may want to substitute your favorite ginger snaps or other spiced cookies.

Tips:

• Make sure that all of your ingredients are room temperature before mixing them or you will have a lumpy cheesecake. I leave mine out for 1 to 3 hours in a cool kitchen before mixing.
• If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a mixer to make your batter, however if you need to crush your cookies manually, you may want to substitute the crust with a cookie that crumbles more easily than the Spiced Wafers.
• Cutting the cheesecake with a warm dry knife will help making sharp clean cuts in your slices for serving. I do this by warming my knife with warm water and wiping it before each cut.
• I usually make it the day before I serve it to make sure it has set completely.

You won’t believe how delicious this pumpkin cheesecake is, especially because it’s so easy to make. I hope you will find an opportunity to make and enjoy it this Fall!

Happy Eating!