Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

And so Turkey month begins!!

Usually I end up with 3 Thanksgiving dinners during this time of year.  The first being the one I host for my friends (a tradition since Junior year of college), the 2nd on actual Thanksgiving with my family, and the 3rd the Saturday after Thanksgiving with Brian’s family.

Well the season kicked off early this year with #4.  Another friend decided to have a “Friendsgiving” this past weekend to double as a house-warming! 

I was excited mostly because I got to see college friends I haven’t seen in a while and try out a new fun dessert!

After racking my brain for a while, and realizing I didn’t have time for anything that involved making any component ahead of time, I opted for a cheesecake.

Not any cheesecake though.  I was going to go off of my grandmother’s recipe which is my and my family’s FAVORITE! 

Ok, so her recipe is from some random old cookbook, but in my mind it’s still “Nanny’s cheesecake”.

I started there, but wanted to put a festive twist on it and after a little online research I blended 3 recipes into what I wanted!

Double-Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust
makes 1 9” diameter cheesecake

adapted from Nanny’s recipe, this epicurious recipe, and this allrecipes recipe

Crust

• 8 oz gingersnap cookies
• 1 cup pecans
• 2T brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling

• 3.5 packages cream cheese (8 oz each), room temp
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup sugar (scant)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• shake of nutmeg and cloves

Toppings

• 2 cups sour cream
• 1 T sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 350

Crust
In a food processor, grind cookies, pecans, and brown sugar until finely ground.  Add melted butter and pulse until all combined.

Grease a 9” spring form pan with cooking spray or butter (I used a non-stick pan and it didn’t need to be greased). 

Pour crust mixture into the pan and press into the bottom and up the sides about 2”.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cool in the fridge while you make the filling.

Filling
With a mixer, beat cream cheese until light.  Add eggs one at a time mixing on low after each.  Then add vanilla and sugar.  Beat until light and creamy. 

Add half of this mixture to your cooled crust. 

To the remaining filling mixture, add the pumpkin and spices and beat until well combined.  Carefully spread this mixture on top of the first layer.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. 

Topping
In a separate bowl beat together sour cream, sugar, and vanilla with a spoon.  Spread on top of cheesecake surface.  Bake for another 5 minutes.

Cool, and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, or overnight.

YUM!!  Love the crust, and mostly I love that the pumpkin aspect isn’t overpowering the cheesecake flavor.  I love the layer of classic cheesecake, the pumpkin layer adds a nice subtle spice and flavor, and the sour cream topping gives it a delicious sweet tangy flavor. 

This cheesecake got rave reviews at the party and Brian is fully enjoying the leftovers ;)

Turkey Talk: Friendsgiving 2011

A couple of weeks ago I realized my friends and I have been getting together for our own pre-Thanksgiving dinner for 10 YEARS!!  This was our 10th annual Friendsgiving…or as we like to call it “House Thanksgiving”…previously known as “Apartment Thanksgiving”, but then I bought a house :)

I’m thrilled that we’ve kept this tradition going since junior year of college!!  (also makes me feel kinda old)
Most of my classic recipes are on the blog already, so I’ll just give you the run-down and let you know what I changed up for 2011 and what I’m already thinking for 2012!

The standards:
Turkey…but of course.  I don’t really know why but I always feel the need to get a 20+ lb turkey, regardless of my guest list.  I mean I love leftovers, but it’s just getting a little ridiculous. 

I was planning for 14 people (only 12 made it), and I bought a 21.6lb free range bird :)  Next year I am going to save some $$ and some cooking time and keep it more on the 16lb range I’m thinking.


Stuffing: Don’t expect me to ever try out a new recipe.  I love my grandmother’s recipe more than anything and my friends seem to feel the same….why mess with perfection right?  Plus I always make a HUGE batch and we barely have any leftovers.  

Mashed Potatoes:  Nothing too ground breaking here…potatoes, milk, butter, salt, pepper, and a little fresh chopped rosemary.

Green Beans: I still prefer the pancetta/sage recipe to the standard green bean casserole.  I do like the casserole but just don’t feel the need for another heavy creamy dish.

Carrots: What can I say?  I need the cooking water from these to add to the gravy :) 
Squash:  I think I’m going to take a break from the soufflé next year.  I don’t know why, but mine just never turn out as good as I’d hope.  I even took it up a notch this year and took and idea from my aunt to cook the soufflé in baked sugar pumpkins!!  Fabulous idea, lovely presentation, but my soufflé was just NOT setting up…almost 2 hours in the oven and still not ready?!  Who knows. 

(cut the tops of 3 sugar pumpkins and scraped out the inside real good)

(rubbed inside and outside with olive oil and sprinkled inside with salt, pepper, and brown sugar)

(baked at 350 for 30min…prepped and baked these the day before)
I think next year I’m going to switch it up.  I love squash, and wouldn’t mind a less-heavy recipe next year.  
Gravy:  Classic.  Drippings from the turkey, some chicken bullion, and the carrot cooking water.  Bring to boil, add flour/water mixture and simmer until thickened. 
Cranberry sauce: I always have homemade and the jelly-kind in the can.  People always have their favorite…I grew up only liking the canned kind, but now I love both!


Dessert!  This is where I have my fun each year.
I made 3 desserts:

• The Milky Way Tart
• Ina’s French Apple Tart
• Butterscotch pudding cups

I mentioned I was thinking about making the Milky Way Tart because it was a hit at the last party I brought it too, and it still was a crowd favorite!
Apparently I was on a tart kick!  No pies were made this year (by me anyways), but I think I like this apple tart even better than apple pie!  It’s simple, delicious, and has an impressive presentation.
Also could be made ahead of time :)

This tart dough was very different than the dough for the Milky Way Tart, but equally delectable…actually I might like this dough better.

Rolled and trimmed to a 10”x14” rectangle

Arrange the apples, sprinkle with sugar (and a little cinnamon), then dot with butter.

Once finished, you brush with an apricot jam glaze.

So pretty!

The crust is still crisp and flaky today too.
The Butterscotch Pudding cups comes from my favorite butterscotch pie that my grandmother makes!  Just instead of a pie, I put the filling into little mason jars.
Then right before dessert, I whipped up the meringue and torched it with my kitchen torch (always looking for a reason to use my torch)

These were super cute, I want to make more things in mini-mason jars!
  (just realized I don’t have the exact recipe on the blog so I’ll fix that)
Other desserts (by others)

Pumpkin pie!

Mini pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
Both were amazing.
Other notable deliciousness…CHEESE!
Don’t you love when you ask someone to bring something and you just KNOW it’s going to be good…even a cheese platter!?  I do!!  I take my cheese seriously ;)
Even I didn’t expect these masterpieces…

Seriously??  2 HUGE platters of amazing cheese, meats, grapes, dried figs, pate, flowers(!), rosemary Marcona almonds…EVERYTHING!

Oh lets not forget the baked brie, chocolate covered strawberries, and little fall shaped pieces of marzipan.

I’m also very thankful we have the leftovers of the cheese in the fridge :)
The final thing I LOVE about House-Thanksgiving is my tablescape!  Ok so it wasn’t my best work this year but I got distracted when I had some early arriving guests…
Will just call it simple.

Little pears are an easy, colorful, and edible decoration!   Also a roll of $9 burlap from Lowes makes a nice rustic table runner.

And mason jars + coffee beans+candles

(broke out the "fancy" apron)

  Phew!  That was quite the post! 
Have you hosted a Thanksgiving dinner??  Any particular recipe that you can’t live without on Thanksgiving??
Also looking for good appetizer ideas to bring to my aunts on Thursday??

Pumpkin Cupcakes, Less Guilt

Not that there should be any guilt at all when consuming delicious pumpkin cupcakes smothered with cream cheese frosting.  However, I don’t know about you, but I do feel a little better when I know the dessert I’m enjoying isn’t loaded with excess sugar and fat.

But that’s just me.

Also apparently I’ve been living under a rock because I had no idea there was STILL an issue finding pumpkin!  Couldn’t they have figured that one out last year?! 

Anyways, luckily I found some cans of the organic stuff at my local market, and now contemplating going back to stock up…they didn’t have much.

Ok back to the cupcakes…

I needed to make something to bring to my friends apartment to watch the Pats game.  I tend to gravitate towards dessert, and this time consulted some of my “healthier” cookbooks for ideas.

I came across an old favorite from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave…her Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.

My first thought was to just straight up switch the carrots for pumpkin (I was kind of feeling to lazy to shred carrots).  Then there were some more tweaks here and there.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from Ellie Krieger

Makes 16-18 cupcakes
Note: The frosting makes more than you need, but I wanted to use the whole box of cream cheese.  You could cut it down to 6oz of cream cheese and 1 cup confectioners sugar.

1 cup white whole-wheat flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 cup canola oil

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup natural applesauce

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 15oz can pumpkin

8 ounces 1/3 fat cream cheese (recommended: Neufchatel)

2 T butter, softened

1 – 1.5 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
2. Combine dry ingredients (flour through spices) into a medium bowl, whisk together to combine and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs, applesauce, and vanilla.
4. Mix in pumpkin.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet, and mix together until combined.
6. Line muffin tins, and fill about 2/3 to 3/4 to the top.
7. Bake 20-24 min until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
8. Cool!

Frosting:

1. With an electric mixer beat together cream cheese, butter, and 1 cup of confectioners sugar.
2. Add up to 1/2 cup more sugar until desired consistency is reached.  I like my frosting on the thicker side so it holds its shape when piped. 

Once cool, frost!

 

Why is cream cheese frosting SO good???  The best part is the little bowl of extra frosting in the fridge right now :)

These were devoured pretty quickly by my friends :)

Mmm pumpkin season has just begun :)

An Almost Baking Fail

It’s that time of year…cold season, and doesn’t it always seem like one crappy thing leads to another and all of a sudden your crying because your stupid cinnamon rolls aren’t rising?!?!  No?  Just me I guess.

As I’m getting over an annoying cold still, I had to miss what I’m sure was a fabulous time with the girls from We are not Martha for a Stella and Dot jewelry party that I was really looking forward to. 

As to not completely waste the day, I decided to bake and later make dinner. 

I had some canned pumpkin in a Tupperware that needed to be used, and I was in the mood to make a yeast dough!  Then I saw this:

Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Rolls

After scanning the recipe it seemed the only thing I was missing was the dry milk, however I remembered I had dried buttermilk so I went with that!

Everything was going smoothly…

Mix the dough

Used the Kitchen Aid to kneed

Had a nice soft sticky dough, and into a greased bowl it went!

After the allotted 1.5 hours, I checked the dough…it seemed to have risen slightly but not too much.  I knew it wasn't supposed to double but wasn’t sure if this was enough. 

However I moved on.

Rolled it out (using some flour because it was VERY sticky).

I also did not have the special King Arthur’s “Bakers Cinnamon Filling”, so I opted to use the filling recipe from a cinnamon bun recipe in my King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking cookbook!

This filling had brown sugar, cinnamon, and 1 egg white.  I was really happy that it resembled the King Arthur’s Baker’s Cinnamon Filling from the King Arthur blog!

  Mmm cinnamon sugar gooiness.

Well here’s where there was a turn for the worse. (and apparently I was too annoyed to take pictures!)

I rolled and cut up my buns, however the filling was just oozing out of the rolls and I really didn’t know what to do about that!

I placed the cut rolls into the pan and just stared at them.  It was a MESS!!!  Cinnamon sugar filling oozing everywhere, creating a lake at the bottom of the pan…These aren’t supposed to be sticky buns!!!

So I left them alone.  I needed to just get out of the house, so Brian and I ran some errands and went grocery shopping. 

To my shock, when I returned…THEY ROSE!!

I was all set to toss my entire morning into the trash earlier, but I’m glad I didn’t. 

There was still a puddle of filling on the bottom, but I just threw them in the oven and hoped for the best…

Baked!  Actually slightly over baked I think (I need a thermometer in my oven, I think it’s too hot sometimes). 

I tried a piece right away.  Most of the filling had caramelized to the bottom…not in a good way, not bad, but not as good as it sounds.  Plus it took some of the sweet away from the rolls themselves. 

They needed the glaze.

Of COURSE I didn't have enough confectioners sugar…of course.  So I changed directions and went for a cream cheese glaze.

Cream Cheese Glaze

• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 4 oz softened Neufchatel cheese
• 2T Maple syrup (or more to taste)
• 1-3T milk (Start with 1T, add more as needed till you reach desired consistency)
• Mix with a hand mixer until smooth

I spread the glaze on top to cover up the not-so-pretty caramelization on the rolls.  However I would of loved a pretty looking drizzle if they were looking a little better :)

The verdict…not bad!  Actually these will be quite good for breakfast because they are not too sweet!  Brian really liked them with the cream cheese glaze.   I bet they’ll taste even better when I have full taste and smell back ;)

Not my best work, but it was definitely a learning experience.  Reminds me of an expression used at work sometimes:

“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”….so true. (not sure of the origin of that quote)  

Hope your weekend was a little better than mine!