Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

Last summer, my mom and I decided to bake something just because we were bored, so I started Googling recipes online to see what piqued our interests most. Well, we had like half a pumpkin at home and I stumbled upon this recipe on The Food Network, so we decided to roll with that.

We made a few adaptations to the recipe because we didn't want to use canned pumpkins. So we roasted our pumpkin in a 180C oven for about an hour. Then, we scraped the pumpkin flesh and blended it until it became a puree. We also added in some water to make it more runny. The full recipe can be found here.

Pumpkin Cheesecake (serves 10)

Crust:
1 3/4 cups graham cracker/digestive biscuit crumbs
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:
3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
425g pumpkin puree (we used puree from a real pumpkin but you can swap it out for a can of pumpkin puree)
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350F/180C.

2. To make the crust, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

3. To make the filling, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Then, add in flour and vanilla. Beat everything together until it is well combined.

4. Pour the mixture into the springform pan with the crust. Spread the batter out evenly and place it in oven for an hour. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Alternatively, if you don't have a springform pan, you can use a regular cake pan, but be careful when you're taking the cake out.

5. Next, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours. Finally, remove the plastic wrap and pop the cake out of the springform pan or carefully slide a knife around the perimeter of your pan and turn it upside down to get the cake out.
N/B. For some reason, our cake took more than 4 hours to set, so to be on the safe side, let your cake set overnight.