My maternal grandma made the best pumpkin pie this side of heaven. With the perfect amount of sweetness and very subtle spices, her pumpkin pie was the only one I ever really loved. She has been gone for 6 years now but I still miss her and still crave her pumpkin pie, especially around the holidays. It was the one recipe I managed to inherit from her before she died. Once I had a family of my own, I was so excited about making this recipe for them. Only problem is, they do not like pumpkin, much less pumpkin pie. "Oh but this pie is different," I assured them. "It is grandma's special recipe." Still their response once they tasted it was lukewarm at best. The members of my tribe are devout sweet potato pie lovers, and pumpkin pie to them just doesn't cut it. Oh I love sweet potato pie also, but I've just got to get my pumpkin pie fix from time to time.
Then I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. A close second to sweet potato pie among family favorites was cheesecake. So what would happen if I were to combine the two recipes to make a pumpkin cheesecake? Okay, so I admit, I am a little slow and did not know that there was already such a thing as pumpkin cheesecake at that time. In fact, I never started seeing recipes for pumpkin cheesecake until shortly after I had made my first one. And what if I made my crust just a little different? Some of our holiday guests were gluten intolerant so I came up with a way to make the crust gluten-free using dark chocolate and pecans. The guests absolutely loved it. My family was a little leery at first and saw it as yet one more of my attempts to cram pumpkin down their throats. I am sure they probably took that first "courtesy bite" just to avoid the "wrath of Mama." Once they tasted it however, they were hooked. My husband declared that it was almost as good as.... well never mind. It was that good and he ended up eating 3 slices and would have eaten more had I not reminded him that this pie was neither low-fat nor low-calorie. From that day on my pumpkin cheesecake has become a regular fall tradition in our house even before the holiday season officially begins. This year my husband even requested it for his birthday which falls in October. He says that it is a recipe even pumpkin haters can love.
Ingredients
Filling:
1 16 ounce can of pumpkin puree or one cooked pie pumpkin puree
2 8 ounce blocks of cream cheese softened
1 cup of sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Crust:
1 4 ounce bar of semi-sweet dark baking chocolate (I like Ghirardelli)
¼ cup of butter (half a stick
1 cup of chopped pecans
Directions:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
2. In a large mixing bowl combine the pumpkin and cream cheese and beat with an
electric mixture until smooth.
3. In a smaller bowl combine the next 5 ingredients and beat until well blended
4. Add the egg/sugar mixture to the pumpkin/ cream cheese mixture and beat with electric mixer until thoroughly mixed.
5. Break the chocolate bar into chunks and place in a food processor with the butter and the pecans and process the mixture on the pulse setting until it is the consistency of fine gravel.
6. Press the crust into a 9 inch non-stick pie pan or spring form pan ( I still spray my pans with cooking spray)
7. Pour the filling on top of the crust and spread it out as evening as possible with a rubber spatula.
8. Bake the cheesecake for 50-55 minutes. Do not over cook! The center of the cake should still jiggle just a little when gently shaken. It will firm up as it cools.
9. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it stand until it is cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
