Baked Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 3:
 
After doing a combination cheesecake involving pumpkin and eggnog flavors (see Baked Eggnog Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 1 for more details), I wanted to make a deeper pumpkin cheesecake. Two 16-ounce containers of cottage cheese altogether are used for the prototype presented here. The flour used here was white whole wheat, as opposed to all-purpose. I also did some pre-baking of the crust in an effort to reduce excessive sogginess. In my desire to better ensure firmness for the batter, I used a somewhat large amount of flour and opted to bake this cheesecake for a good two hours.
 
Crust:
2 oz. melted, white chocolate
2 oz. pumpkin butter (such as from Trader Joe's)
1 cup (8 oz.) whipped lowfat cottage cheese, no salt added
1/4 cup skim milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2.2 oz. Bran Buds, ground up

Pour this crust mixture into a 9" pan and pre-bake this at 300 degrees (without tub) for 20 minutes. Then cool this off until the pan is comfortable enough to touch.

Batter:
2 tablespoons melted or softened butter
5/8 cup granulated sugar
6 oz. pumpkin butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups (24 oz.) whipped lowfat cottage cheese, no salt added
2 eggs

Bake at 300 degrees (with tub) for 2 hours.

Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 3 Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 3 (sliced)

The batter seemed to come out hopefully firm enough, and the crust did not seem too soggy either. When I pre-baked the crust earlier, however, it seemed that 20 minutes was a little too long, as the crust rose probably about 1/4", then fell back and left its outer edge running up about that amount against the inside of the pan. The two hours of baking time for the batter resulted in it having some small cracks, but I reasoned that this was okay, signifying a sufficiently baked cheesecake.

I brought this one to a couple of my cousins' homes on Thanksgiving, Joanne's and Lauren's, and some guests there complimented on this cheesecake. But I myself had difficulty tasting a sufficient presence of pumpkin flavor.
 

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