Halloween: Pumpkin Cheesecake

Never in my life I thought I would make so many cheesecakes in a year. I'm guessing this is my 10th or so. Though I often refer to myself as "not a cheesecake person", I can't help but eat a generous amount of it. This cheesecake started off as a pumpkin cheesecake. Still left with 1 ½ cups of pumpking puree in my fridge, I decided to just add the puree to my favorite cheesecake recipe. The result is a cheesecake that looks and smells like a pumpkin cheesecake, but doesn't actually taste like one. I'm guessing 1 ½ cups of puree isn't enough to harbor the pumpkin flavor. But like I said, this is my favorite cheesecake recipe so it still tastes amazing, so I rate it 4 out of 5.

Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe: adapted from AllRecipes.com's Chantal's New York Cheesecake

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs
- 6 tablespoons butter, melted
- 24 ounces cream cheese (3 packages of 8oz)
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ cup milk
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cup pumpkin puree (I suggest using a bit more, maybe 2 ½ cups)

Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch springform pan.
- In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan. Store in the refrigerator until needed.
- In a large bowl, mix cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Fold in the pumpkin puree. Pour filling into prepared crust and put in the oven.
- Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving.


Note: I made this cheesecake late at night and unexpectedly, so I didn't take any photographs of the making process, just the finished product.
Although I let the cheesecake cool off in the oven (overnight), it still cracked, so I covered up the crack with some whipped cream, but it still looked kind of unfinished to me ...

... so I created a spiderweb pattern on top.

I so love the color blocking of this cheesecake :D.