Baked Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 11:
 
This one ended up being about my fourth "post-COVID" cheesecake, which I made for Thanksgiving 2021. It was also my first pumpkin cheesecake in two years. The only major difference was in the updated cheese base (more info here).
 
3-Cheese Blend (1CT-1NC-1YG):
Prepare ahead of time 16 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from one 32-ounce container of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 16 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 16 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 16 ounces (two 8-ounce packages) of softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese").

Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") springform pan, but do not wrap foil around it yet (see below).

Crust:
2 oz. melted, white chocolate
4 oz. pumpkin butter (such as from Trader Joe's)
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 25 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Batter:
1 cup granulated sugar
40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
14 oz. pumpkin butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
6 eggs

Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the batter (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier).

Next, carefully pour about 2/3 of this batter over the crust and place the pan in a hot water tub and bake in oven at 300 degrees for 55 minutes* (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Afterwards, remove this from oven and carefully add the remaining 1/3 batter on top of the earlier installment. Return all this to oven and continue baking at 300 degrees for another 120 minutes*. Then shut off oven and cool cheesecake down while still in it (and in tub), with door slightly ajar, for an hour. Next, remove the pan of cheesecake from oven and tub and (at this point, add a border of chips—such as pumpkin-flavored—if desired) continue to cool down at room temperature for another two hours, then remove the cheesecake from its pan and refrigerate.
* (The 55-minute baking time in the earlier installment was unintentional. It was supposed to be 85 minutes. This error led to a decision to bake the later installment for 120 minutes, rather than 95 as originally planned. See comments below for more details.)

Pumpkin Cheesecake—Prototype 11

It was my original intent to bake the earlier batter installment for 85 minutes (just like with the previous pumpkin prototype). Problem was...I MISCALCULATED THE TIME to add the later installment! Therefore, the first installment ended up being baked a half hour shorter than I had planned. I did not discover this error until shortly after adding the later installment and putting the cheesecake back into the oven. So as a compromise, I resumed the baking after that later addition for 25 extra minutes—that's 120 minutes altogether for this second phase—rather than the originally planned 95 minutes (again, just like with the previous pumpkin cheesecake), in a cautious effort to avert a mushy outcome.

So what happened? Somehow, this baking time adjustment seemed to work out hopeful, as I felt that the cheesecake ended up being firm to some encouraging extent.

In light of my not readily coming across any pumpkin-flavored morsels in late 2021, I decided not to bother with a border of chips for this cheesecake. Anyway, it was well-received at my cousin Joanne and Jerry's house upon my bringing it to the Thanksgiving meal there.
 

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