Pumpkin Cheesecake

Well I had a can of pumpkin puree on hand that was going to expire in a month. Pumpkin Cheesecake. When I was getting my nails done I came across a recipe in Real Simple. It Sounded delicious. Well this project turned out to be more than I had expected. The recipe from Real Simple was a refrigerator pie. No cooking. Now this is fine but I had a baking craving going on.

So on to the search I went to Food Network and looked at Paula Deans recipe  plus a recipe from The Joy of Baking that gave me the cream cheese topping for the pie. It was a project.  I cooked it at 355 for a little over an hour . The time cooked truly depends on your stove. Oh also I did not have enough cream cheese I was about 4 oz. off so I went to this link and it has all the Common Ingredient Substitutes really cool and very handy site. I replace the cream cheese with some Greek yogurt. The results awesome.

So it ended up going like this

Ingredients

Crust

2 cups of graham cracker crumbs.
* I used half graham cracker and half english tea cookies/crackers.
They had a little sweet taste to them and where thicker.
3 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 cup of melted butter


In a food processor break up the crackers into crumbs , add the butter and sugar. Take the cracker crumb and press it into a spring form pan. Cook in the oven at 375 for 8 minutes. Take it out and cool it while you prepare the filling

Filling

1 cup of pumpkin puree
1 1/2  8 oz sticks of cream cheese (room temperature)
1 6 oz container of plain Greek yogurt
1 cup of granulated  sugar
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of pumpkin spice
1 teaspoon of nutmeg

In a mixer mix the cream cheese until it is smooth , add the pumpkin and yogurt until it is mixed well. Now add the spices , eggs and sugar. Last add the flour and mix well.

 Pour the mixture on to your crust and bake in the oven at 350 for 1 hour. Cook it until the middle is still giggly. Take it out and let it cool then put it in the refrigerator for 4 hours

Topping
1 cup sour cream
4 tbs sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip up the topping

In a small bowl add your sour cream, sugar and vanilla extract. Use a whisk and whisk till smooth and top your cake or if you prefer just put some whip cream in a bowl to add if you or your friends want to. I sprinkled a little pumpkin spice on top . It was a hit

Sprinkle the top with some nutmeg. You can use Pumpkin Spice but enough is enough with the pumpkin ! 

This is a nice change from the usual Pumpkin Pie and it is so light and scrumptious !