pumpkin cheesecake

Let’s Break For Cheesecake

With all the pumpkin proliferation that erupts at the tail end of summer this is a recipe that might stand out from the orangey crowd.

I was a little leery about baking a sour cream topping but I was reminded that folks in these parts don’t mess around with sour cream. Go on – feel the force – the sour cream worked and made a nice topping for the cheesecake.

I don’t recall eating cheesecake until the 80s, when I dove fork first into a Sara Lee cheesecake. With origins to the 1940s Sara Lee cheesecake had been my north star for what a cheesecake should be. Nowadays baking a homemade cheesecake is simply worth the extra love.

Foodie Tips

❤  The amount of graham crackers caused some intense discussion in our household. We netted out that “18 double graham crackers” actually meant 18 sheets of 4-up crackers, which is 72 total crackers not 36. I guess in the golden days a single cracker was assumed to be a 2-up cracker whereas today it would likely be considered 2 separate crackers.

❤  Make sure your spring form pan is well seated and sealed. Mine leaked a little bit in the oven which I solved by placing a pan underneath to catch any drips. After a few minutes baking the cake had set and all was good!

❤  You definitely do not want to over bake your cheesecake. Over baking will likely form cracks through and on the top resulting in a dry vs. moist end result. I’m reminded that the creamiest cheesecake I ever had was the one we water bathed in our oven. To do so we just wrapped the bottom of the springform pan with foil and placed it in a small pan of water while it cooked. The extra moisture will treat you to an amazingly moist cheesecake. I’ll try this method on the next go of this recipe!

i. Time

Prep: About 1.5 hours, including 30 minutes for prep and 1 hour for baking. Most people prefer their cheesecake chilled, so cooling it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight is recommended!

ii. Ingredients

18 sheets (72 total)  |  graham crackers, crushed and divided
1 cup (2 sticks)  |  butter, melted (my Grandmother “Nanny” insisted on Falfurrias)
3 (8 ounce) packages  |  cream cheese
1 ½ cups  |  sugar
4  |  cage free eggs, separated and beaten
15 ounce can  |  pumpkin
2 teaspoons  |  ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon  |  ground ginger
½ teaspoon  |  ground cloves

for the topping:
1 pint (16 ounces)  |  sour cream
4 tablespoons  |  sugar
1 teaspoon  |  vanilla

iii. What To Do

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F.

2. Crush the graham crackers in a bowl by hand or you can place them in a Ziploc bag, seal, and crush with a rolling pin or simply by hand. Mix the butter into the crumbs and press it into the bottom of a spring form pan. Reserve enough of the crumbs to cover the top in step 8 below.

3. Cream together the cream cheese, sugar, beaten egg yolks (not the whites yet!), the pumpkin and the 3 spices.

4. Hand fold-in the egg whites.

5. Pour everything into the spring form pan and bake for ~25 minutes at 375°F. I was using my gas oven and needed to add an additional 10-15 minutes for the cake to set.

6. When done remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it cool a bit. We’re not done with the oven yet – increase the temperature to 475°F.

7. While the cake is cooling lets make our topping by hand-stirring together the sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Pour this mixture on top of the cheese cake and return it to the oven to bake for 5 minutes at 475°F. 

8. Remove the cheesecake from the oven, sprinkle on the remaining (reserved) buttery graham cracker crumbs from above and let it cool. I let my cheesecake rest on the bottom of the springform pan insert and chilled it in the fridge for a few hours until we were ready to cut it into slices and enjoy it!

Yield: About 8-16 slices, depending on how hungry you are.

~ Patrick

Betty’s Son
Founder and “Nostalgic Food Blogger” of Betty’s Cook Nook

A Scan Of Mom’s Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

11/30/21