NY Style Pumpkin Cheesecake

I know you guys were waiting for me to post another delicious cheesecake recipe! I could secretly hear your cries for this form of yumminess. Part of my family had their Thanksgiving early so that most everyone could be there, so I decided to make this new holiday treat!

Please note that I made this prior to my clean health kick, so I made this as unhealthy as possible. 

You start with a little bit of inspiration. Might I suggest the Hard Apple Cider Cinnamon, a pumpkin cheese cake candle, and Hallmark Channels Christmas movies. 

Now here are the Ingredients: 

Crust: 

1 (12oz) box of Gingersnap Cookies

1/2 cup (or one stick) salted butter Melted.

1/8 cup of brown sugar

And a pinch of salt

I add the brown sugar and salt to give it a little more sweetness. But if you only use the cookies and butter it should come out pretty darn good.

For the Filling: 

4 (8oz) packages of cream cheese, room temp

1 3/4 cups of white sugar

3 large eggs at room temp

1 (15oz or small) can of pumpkin puree

1 heavy cup of whipping cream

2 tisp Vanilla Extract 

2 tisp ground cinnamon

1 tisp ground ginger

1/2 tisp ground nutmeg

1/2 tisp of pumpkin spice

1/4 tisp of ground cloves

Toppings: 

Whipped Cream

Chopped Pecans

1.) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put one of the racks in the center and one on the bottom. Now for the crust you are going to beat, bash, and pulverize those little cookies to a pulp. you want them to be fine crumbs. Put those dusty crumbs in a bowl, mix in the brown sugar and salt, and then drizzle the buttah on top. Mix it all in and make sure everything is coated.

2.) Take your 10" springform pan and grease the bottom, press the crumbs into the bottom, and stick it in the oven for 9 minutes. Once it is done, let the crust cool on a wire rack, or in my case on the counter.

3.) Once it is out take a 9x13 dish of water and put it on the lowest rack of the oven and drop the temp to 225 degrees.

4.) For the Filling take the cream cheese and beat it into creamy shape. Once it is nice and creamy, slowly start adding the sugar to make it fluffy. Add your eggs in one at a time, letting them mix in fully. Add in the pumpkin puree, whipping cream and all of the spices until they are all well mixed. Then add it to the crust.

5.) Here is the tedious part! Place your springform pan on an oversized cookie sheet, and put into the oven on the middle rack. Now you are going to let that little piece of heaven bake for 4-4 1/2 hours. The Center of the cheesecake will still be a bit jiggly, but the majority of the cake with be firm. 

6.) At that point turn the oven off and crack the door open and let the cheesecake just sit in their for an additional 2 hours. Once that time is up then you place it on the counter to cool to room temperature. 

7.) Cover and let it completely chill in the fridge. 

8.) When you go to serve it take a plastic knife around the edges and then release the sides of the springform pan.

You can bake it a little faster but it causes the cake to crack and not wind up so pretty. So it's worth all of that time!

The only thing you have left to do is eat it! 

For a PDF version of the recipe to print out click HERE!