Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

I made a pumpkin cheesecake over the weekend that was DA BOMB!!!!!  (Do people still say da bomb.....???) 

The recipe I used called for a lot of lovely spices (ground clove, cinnamon, all spice & ground ginger); I'm sure, you could easily substitute all that for Pumpkin Pie spice and get away with it.  The great thing about this cheesecake was that it had a very fluffy texture and not as dense as most cheesecakes. I believe, the key to getting a really fluffy cheescake was to press the water out of the pumpkin filling (canned) and use five eggs as opposed to four.

Here's how my cheesecake bakin' went!

I started out with Graham crackers....

 Put them in a food processor....

Ground them up.....

Added a couple tablespoons of buttah....

Stirred in Sugar n' Spice.....

Put the spiced buttery crumbs into a springform pan and patted them down in an even layer.  I baked the crumbs in the oven at 325 degrees for about 10-12 minutes - allowed it to cool down for 10 minutes when it was done.....

Mixed up my pressed out pumpkin filling with cream cheese, spices, sugar and eggs....

Poured the mixture into the springform pan and smoothed out the top of the filling.  I baked it in the oven at 325 degrees in a water bath for a little over an hour.  Because my oven is possesed it took less time than what the recipe recommended (1 1/2 hours).  Then I let it cool down in the pan for 45 minutes and put it in the fridge to chill for about 3 hours before serving....

Take it out put it on a fancy festive plate and if you're feeling brave add a toasted marshmallow to your slice....

I know - you're dying to make one yourself!

Here's the video on how to make it!

Bon Appetit!

Max-o-lantern

This is going to be a very quick post.  I've been cranking out all kinds of decorations for the kids' Where the Wild Things Are Halloween Party (Max boats, signage, paper rosettes, banners....).  In the middle of being a wife, mom, real  work (snore), and (ahem) me time, I managed to crank out this little baby. 

It's a Max inspired carved pumpkin!  Over the weekend we got two pumpkins to carve for Halloween.  The Mini Diva (my daughter) wanted Max on one and one of the monters - she calls it the bull, his name is Bernard - on the other pumpkin we bought.  Well, folks, lemme just say, there isn't enough time in the day for me to do another one of these, no matter how much it pains me not to.  The Max-o-lantern took me 5.5 hours to getterdone - and it was my first time.  Miss Thing (again, my daughter) thought we should really make the bull.  I convinced her otherwise by telling her she could help me with roasting the pumpkin seeds - easy & fair trade.  By the way, if you haven't made them before, roasting the seeds is easy and they taste so much better than the ones you get in those packets at the gas station! 

Anyway, I hope to get one more post in before Halloween.  In the meantime, here are some more pictures of our pumpkin carving affair.