Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake

It's October, so you know what that means... Pumpkin spiced EVERYTHING. From coffee to candles, your senses are going to be bombarded for the next month or two, like it or not. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! This layered pumpkin cheesecake has just the right amount of pumpkin flavor without overwhelming everything else. Details like the homemade pumpkin purée and graham cracker crust makes for an exceptionally delicious cheesecake. It's sure to impress, and the nice thing is it's really not that difficult to make! The pumpkin purée can be made in advance, and the canned stuff just doesn't compare in flavor. The bit of sugar in the graham cracker crust gives it such a lovely crisp. The hubby and I ate up the whole thing in about two days, no lie. It's that good... Enjoy!


Fresh Pumpkin Purée 

• 1 Sugar Pumpkin (pie pumpkin)
• Approx. 1 Tbsp Oil (olive, canola, vegetable, whatever you've got)
• 1 c Water

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Wash the flesh of the pumpkin to remove any dirt and debris. Pop off the stem and cut pumpkin into quarters. Use a spoon or an ice cream scoop to scrape out the seeds (set aside if you like to roast them) and stringy bits. Once it's all cleaned out, rub the cut edges with oil to help prevent the edges from burning. I used olive oil and simply poured a bit in my hands to work into the edges. Place the pieces into your baking dish without overlapping them. I used an 8x8 glass casserole dish and there was just enough room. Add a cup of water to the bottom of the pan, also to help prevent burning. Cook for 60-90 minutes, until the flesh of the pumpkin is soft enough to easily pierce with a fork. Set pieces on a wire cooling rack. Once cool, but not cold, use a spoon or an ice cream scoop to scrape the flesh away from the skin (in the Halloween spirit, how creepy did that sound? Haha!). Use a food processor, blender, or food mill to blend until you have a smooth purée. Set aside 3/4 cup of pumpkin. One sugar pumpkin will make a significant amount of purée. The remainder can be stored in the refrigerator for about a week or so, or will last for months in the freezer.


Graham Cracker Crust

• 12 Graham Crackers (full sheets)
• 6 Tbsp Melted Butter
• 1/3 c Sugar

Begin by breaking up the graham crackers into a fine crumb (I used honey graham crackers, and they work awesome with this recipe). If using a food processor or blender, be careful not to overdo it! We're looking for crumbs here, not powder. Mix in the sugar, then the melted butter. Once well combined, pour into an ungreased 9" pie pan. Using your hands, press graham cracker mixture into the bottom and along the sides of the pan. Getting the sides nice and even is a little tricky, but with a little patience and some firm pressing, you'll have a lovely crust in no time. Set aside when finished.


Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake

• Prepared Graham Cracker Pie Crust
• 2 8 oz Packages of Regular Cream Cheese (softened to room temperature)
• 1/2 c Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 Eggs
• 3/4 c Fresh Pumpkin Purée
• 1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and a dash of ground ginger if you don't have pumpkin pie spice)

Preheat your oven to 325°F. In a large mixing bowl combine cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat in each egg, one at a time, until well combined. Pour about 1 1/2 cups of this mixture into your prepared graham cracker crust for the first layer of traditional cheesecake and set aside. Next, add the pumpkin purée and spice to the remaining mixture and gently stir until well combined (you don't want to overwork it).  Pour over the first layer. Mine filled up right to the top! So long as you're able to handle it without spilling, fill it on up because cheesecake doesn't really rise. Bake for 30-45 minutes. You're looking for the top to just barely start picking up color, and for the middle to be nearly set (in other words, there shouldn't be much movement when you jiggle the pan). Set on wire cooling rack for an hour or so. Once cool, transfer to the refrigerator to set for at least 3 hours or overnight. 

Cheesecake as it appeared freshly placed in oven.

Baked to glorious perfection!

Cranberry Jelly Thumbprint Cookies with White Chocolate Drizzle

Okay, so I lied in my last post. That "seasonal" french toast recipe is now quite out of season so I'm going to move forward and pretend like nothing ever happened...

SO! Happy New Year!
Did anyone take advantage of the lovely price and abundance of cranberries back in November/December? These things keep in your freezer for forever, so just a note, if you didn't snag a few extra bags this time around be sure to do so in the future! I've had an itch to make something decadent with some of the berries I had in my freezer, so here it is: Thumbprint Cookies with Cranberry Vanilla Jelly with a hint of Blueberry and a White Chocolate Drizzle. Just the name alone sounds epic. A little time consuming? Yes. But sooooooo worth it.

To begin, let's make some jelly! This can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it. (Really, you can even skip this step and use any flavor of store bought jelly instead, which is nice if you're looking to save a little time.)

Here's what you need for the Cranberry Vanilla Jelly:
1 1/2 cps (fresh or) Frozen Cranberries
1/2 cp (fresh or) Frozen Blueberries
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 cps Sugar
1/2 cp Water

Start by bringing the vanilla extract, sugar, and water to a boil in a medium sized pot, stirring occasionally. Then, add your berries. If using frozen, there's no need to thaw ahead of time. Simply throw them on in! I stir a little more frequently at this point and even help the berries along by squishing them with my spoon, but really you just need to bring everything back up to a boil. Once you do, you can drop your heat nice and low to let your jelly thicken up. I let mine sit like this for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then to be sure the sides or bottom weren't scorching. Once it's nice and jelly-like, remove from heat and allow to cool for at least 5-10 minutes. In this time, it should thicken even more and come down to a safer temperature for pureeing in a blender. Which leads us to our next step, puree! If you have a food mill then, by all means, mill away. I used my Ninja blender for about 30 seconds. (DO be cautious on this step, if your jelly is still warm at all you risk it wanting to explode when you open it after blending.) And that's that! Unless you aren't a fan of skins and seeds in your jelly. Then you'll need to push your mixture through a fine strain sieve with the back of a spoon to get your final product. And you're done with your jelly!

But why stop at just delicious jelly? Time to put this flavorful stuff on top of some simple, buttery, crunchy thumbprint cookies.

Here's what you need for Thumbprint Cookies:
1/2 cp (or 1 stick) Butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cp Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 cps Flour
1/4 cp (approx.) Cranberry Vanilla Jelly

And for the White Chocolate Drizzle:
1/3 cp (approx.) White Chocolate Chips
1/2 tsp Coconut Oil (optional)

First, get your workspace ready. Preheat the oven to 350° F, line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (for easy cleanup!), and have a cooling rack or two ready. In a medium sized bowl beat the softened (NOT melted) butter, powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla extract until smooth. If you have an electric mixer, this step is a cinch set on high for about a minute. Slowly mix in flour until your dough forms. You may not need the whole cup and a half, what you're looking for is a moldable dough that isn't sticky. I know it's ready when I can press the back of my mixing spoon into it and it leaves a shiny, distinct imprint. Now, roll the dough by hand into little balls about a tablespoon or less in size. I like to press them a little flat before arranging them on the cookie sheet to make "thumb printing" them later a little easier. (There's enough butter in this recipe to keep you from needing to flour your hands or grease the parchment paper to keep the dough from sticking, so no worries there.) Keep at least 1/2" of space between each dough ball, but really they shouldn't spread much at all. Now bake for 10 minutes. I like to have one batch in the oven, and one batch ready to go, so after I fill one cookie sheet I put it in the oven and begin loading up the second tray while the first bakes. When I take one batch out at the 10 minute mark to "thumbprint" I put the other tray in. Be careful to watch your timers though! Now, to "thumbprint" your cookies, you may either use your thumb or finger of choice to make a dent in the middle of the cookie, or you can use the back of a small spoon to do the same. I could probably do this step by hand back in my waitressing days, but I don't have a thick skin against heat these days and used the back of one of my nice round measuring spoons instead. The sides of your cookies will likely crumble and crack to an extent which is normal, just gently coax the cookie back into one piece if bits fall off. Now spoon in a little bit of jelly into each of the indents in the cookies. When you finish, return to the oven for roughly 8-10 minutes, or until they just barely begin to brown on the edges. These are crunchy cookies, not chewy, but you still want them to be soft, not hard and burnt. Transfer to your cooling rack and let cool completely before adding the chocolate drizzle.

When you're ready for that chocolate drizzle though, the easiest route to go is via microwave. Simply add your white chocolate chips and coconut oil, if you're using it, into a mug and heat for 30 seconds on high. (I like using a mug because of it's handle and perfect size for this job. Also, using a little coconut oil or shortening helps the chocolate to stay liquid for a little longer. This means a longer drying time, but more time to work with the chocolate before needing o reheat it.) Stir your chocolate, and continue to heat in 10 second bursts, stirring each time, until all your chips are melted and smooth. Now you're ready to decorate those delicate little cookies! This can be done a number of ways. For a rather fast and fool-proof method: put your chocolate into a small sandwich baggie, and make a very tiny snip at the bottom corner. Instant disposable pastry bag! Place a paper towel under your cooling rack, and squeeze your chocolate over all your cookies in one fail swoop, and leave to dry. The downside to this method is you will not be able to reheat your chocolate easily so you'll need to work fast, and you'll have a decent amount of waste doing all the cookies at once. The more tedious OCD way I like to do it: hold one cookie over your mug of melted chocolate. Using the spoon you used to stir, scoop some chocolate up and hold over the mug until you get a steady thin stream of it falling. Drizzle over the cookie (and catch everything that falls back in your mug!) and replace cookie on cooling rack to dry. Repeat until all cookies are decorated, reheating the chocolate with 10 second microwave bursts as needed. The obvious downside to this method, it's a little crazy and rather time consuming! Hahaha

And your cookies are complete!
This recipe makes a decent amount of jelly, but only about 20 cookies. If you want more, double or triple the cookie recipe, but the jelly will suffice for multiple batches (unless, like me, you have a son that wants to eat all the jelly with a spoon straight from the jar!). Be warned, these things are REALLY flavorful and scrumptious. One batch is not going to be enough. HA! Happy baking!