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As the air starts to chill and the blistering heat of the summer begins to die down, the sweet scents of autumn and dying leaves fill the air. Grandmothers bring out their spice scented candles and bowls of pinecones in preparation for the upcoming holiday, Thanksgiving. In this article, I’d love to give a review on a time old tradition with a twist; a pumpkin cheesecake, rather than a pie.
The recipe I chose is from Sally’s Baking Addiction, and is rated 4.9/5 stars on the website, and I was hopeful as to its outcome, both from the rating and my favor for pumpkin flavored sweets. It is safe to say, I was excited.
Unfortunately, I ran into a small problem. From the start, everything went well. I prebaked the crust, made the cream cheese and pumpkin filling, and prepared the water bath for while it baked, but there was a hole in the tin foil I used for the water bath portion of the recipe. This let water into the pan during baking. The crust was soaked, and promptly turned to mush when I tried to take a slice out.
I was disappointed at the failure of the crust, but it proved to be unimportant to the actual taste itself. I’ll choose to grade it on a few different things; smell, taste, texture, and time/effort to make.
Smell: 10/10. The whole house smelled like pumpkin pie as it was baking and stayed there for a good few hours. The warm smell truly set the mood for fall, and even my grandparents made comments about how nice it smelled.
Taste: 10/10. The flavor was exactly as I hoped it would be. It was packed with pumpkin spice and hints of vanilla in every bite. It really cemented in the old nostalgia of fall. The crust was delectable and tasted very similar to gingerbread.
Texture: 9/10. I’m not going to give up on the crust, as it was likely my own error for making it mushy. Other than that, the texture was beautiful throughout. The addition of pumpkin didn’t make the cheesecake too mushy or unable to set. In fact, it was just the slightest bit dry in my opinion, despite the moisture from both pumpkin and water bath.
Time/Effort: 7/10. It took a good few hours to make, and I can’t see a day where I actually make it on a school day. It would be best to try making this pie on the weekends. Also, making sure that your filling is neither undermixed or overmixed can sometimes be a little tricky when given no image or video examples.
Overall a 9/10 on average! I really recommend this cheesecake to anyone who’d be willing to try it. The steps are fairly simple and easy to follow and the results are beautiful. I hope you all can enjoy it this upcoming Thanksgiving! Perhaps it may even become a new family tradition.
