Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

 

I have already made a few recipes from this cooking magazine (read those blog posts here and here), but I hadn't attempted to make any of the pumpkin cheesecake recipes. I've actually never made cheesecake before. I didn't have a springform pan, but I just bought one at Marshall's, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 cups finely crushed chocolate sandwich cookies
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake

• 3 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 1.5 cups miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. For crust, in a bowl combine crushed cookies and butter. In a 9-inch springform pan, press crumb mixture onto the bottom and a1/2-inch up the sides of the pan. Bake 12 minutes or until set. Cool completely on wire rack.
2. Meanwhile, for filling, in a large bowl and using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, and pumpkin pie spice on medium speed until combined. Add pumpkin and eggs; beat just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into the crust-lined pan; bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven to 250°F; bake 60 minutes or until cheesecake is set around the edges and center slightly jiggles when gently shaken.
4. Remove cheesecake from oven and cool completely in pan on wire rack. Without releasing the sides of pan, use a narrow metal spatula or table knife to loosen sides of crust from the pan. Loosely cover cheesecake; refrigerate at least 6 hours or up to 24 hours. 
5. To serve, use narrow metal spatula to again loosen sides of crust from pan. Carefully release and remove sides of the pan. Place cheesecake of serving plate. Store cheesecake, covered, in refrigerator.

I already had my doubts about this little project. For one, I never bother to make my own pie crust, because it's such a pain (and it has already been perfected by Pillsbury, Oreo, and Keebler). But those pre-made crusts are meant for regular pies, not cheesecake. So I just bought the Oreo kind and slipped it into the bottom of the pan. I knew it was a gamble, but I was not about to slave over making my own crust; I completely skipped step #1. And because of my impatience, I didn't wait for the cream cheese to fully soften. It had been sitting out for about 10 minutes, and I just went ahead and started mixing it with the other ingredients. So the texture was a bit more chunky and not as smooth as it should have been. I also may not have had enough pumpkin (I just used what was left in the can from a previous recipe), and I didn't have miniature chocolate chips, so I used regular-sized ones. Needless to say, I was a bit worried about how this was going to turn out.

After the cake had chilled in the fridge for about six hours, I removed the springform pan. As expected, some of the pumpkin part of the cake was hanging over the lip of the crust, since I didn't shape the crust into the bigger pan. But that was a minor issue. The cake hadn't solidified in the center. I don't know if I didn't cook it long enough (I baked it for an hour) or if I just hadn't given it enough time to set in the fridge. So the presentation was totally lacking (hence why I didn't NOT include a photo of it here). But at the very least it tastes good. It definitely tastes more like chocolate than pumpkin, so maybe next time I would use fewer chocolate chips, and maybe even use a graham cracker crust instead. 

So, not my best work, but not a horrible effort for the first time making cheesecake. But maybe I'll treat myself to getting a slice of pumpkin cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory...