Pumpkin Cheesecake With Caramel Sauce
By: Michele Morris
Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 8:48am

Ingredients




1 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg white
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, softened
2 large eggs, at room temperature
caramel sauce, to top

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 2 Butter the inside of an 8-10 inch springform pan and line the bottom with buttered parchment paper. 3 Combine cookie crumbs with sugar, butter and egg white, then press into the bottom of the pan. Bake until just set, about 8 minutes. Let cool slightly. 4 Mix together cream cheese and brown sugar until just barely smooth, then add pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, and mace and mix on a low speed for about 2 minutes. 5 Add mascarpone cheese and mix 2 more minutes to combine, then add eggs and mix until incorporated, about 1 minute. Scrape down sides after each ingredient is added to ensure even mixing. 6 Pour pumpkin filling over the crust then wrap the outside of the springform pan with foil to ensure no water gets into the cheesecake while baking. 7 Set in a large pan and place in the oven, then fill the baking pan with hot water until it reaches 2/3 of the way up the sides of the springform pan. Bake until the center of the cheesecake is lightly set, about 60-75 minutes. 8 Remove and let cool in the refrigerator for 8 hours before unmolding the springform pan. 9 To serve, drizzle slices with caramel sauce.

About


I’m not much of a dessert person. That’s not to say that I don’t like sweet things – ask my friends about how sweet I make my coffee, and I don’t go to bed many nights without a cookie as a snack. But when it comes to ordering dessert after a meal, I’m usually too full to enjoy it. Well, it’s now two days after Thanksgiving, and I present to you my Thanksgiving dessert…pumpkin cheesecake with a gingerbread cookie crust drizzled with decadent caramel sauce. I would attribute this to someone if I could piece together all of the recipes I perused on the Internet, but the reality is that I ended up with something all my own. And it started with this collection of winter squash from my CSA farm. Now I know I called this a pumpkin cheesecake, but that’s only because pumpkin-delicata-sugarloaf was just too long. The reality is that most sweet winter squash such as these (along with butternut and acorn) can be used interchangeably in many recipes.