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Gobble Gobble: Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake

Gobble Gobble: Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake

Gentleman Jack kicks up this ginger pumpkin cheesecake shown with a pumpkin

Time is nigh for setting the table and facing that big ole mess we call family…and all that that entails. This seems to be the one holiday when everyone descends on the same day and comes with baggage instead of picnic baskets. But let’s be real – we are indeed so lucky that we can in fact gather, break bread and give thanks. I am hoping the biggest debate your gang faces on Thursday is sweet potato or pumpkin. (I’m looking at you Val – duh, pumpkin!) And my picnic basket this year is loaded with a secret weapon – a dessert that you can make a day or two ahead. Check that box. Move on. Worry about the Beaujolais Nouveau and who will do the dishes.  Dessert is mission-accomplished. This pumpkin ginger cheesecake falls smack in the middle of  the “consider it done” category. That of course assumes you can keep it safeguarded til after dinner on Thursday. It’s tempting.

Fall in Northern Michigan - pumpkin varieties

Thanksgiving dinner often gets a bad rap for being a brown meal. But I love the vibrant colors of fall squashes, pumpkins and gourds. Use them for table settings, roast them for a side or salad,  make a quick bread, or whip them up in a dessert.
Setting The Table with fall foliage and candles on an orange cloth

Cheesecakes are pretty flawless desserts to prepare even if you haven’t made them before, as long as you follow a few simple tips. They are super sturdy, so you don’t need a deft hand. I would argue quite the opposite. You really don’t want to be dainty with the batter – don’t incorporate lots of air, do bang the pan, get aggressive. Be bold. If you follow my instructions and read the accompanying notes, you will be a star performer – dare I say, a pastry chef. Start with your ingredients at room temperature, use a good quality springform, and use a food processor, not a mixer. A processor will combine the ingredients without incorporating air which will cause the cheesecake to puff and fall, leaving a crater in the center. Allow all the time needed for cooling to room temperature and then refrigerating. It takes time, but not active time. And know that if all else fails – craters or cracks – you will be slathering a cream  topping on and that can cover a multitude of mistakes. Yes, indeed. You are definitely a pastry chef.

Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake

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Pumpkin ginger cheesecake

Tennessee Whiskey Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake


  • Author: Katy Keck
  • Total Time: 2 hours
  • Yield: Serves 12 1x

Description

This pumpkin ginger cheesecake is surprisingly light, yet creamy. The nutty crust has that I want more-ish quality! And, a dose of Gentleman Jack Daniels keeps the party rolling.  


Ingredients

Scale

Crust:

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
  • 1/4 cup melted butter

Filling:

  • 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
  • 24 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
  • 5 ounces Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 1 Tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground clove
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 6 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

Topping:

  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 Tablespoons Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
  • 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

Instructions

Make the Crust:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine flour, brown sugar, pecans, and melted butter and mix until crumbs adhere. Press into a 9 or 10″ sturdy nonstick springform pan and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Remove and cool. Wrap pan in heavy duty foil. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.

Make the Filling:

In food processor, puree pumpkin until smooth. Add cream cheese and puree until smooth. Add Gentleman Jack, sugar, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg and pulse until mixed. Add eggs and pulse 2 – 3 times only until just combined. Do not overprocess.

Pour filling into cooled crust and bang pan on the counter to eliminate extra air. Place in a roasting pan and fill with hot water, halfway up the side of the springform. Bake for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours or until set. It may still be a bit wobbly in the center, but it will firm up as it cools.

Turn oven off and leave the cheesecake in the water bath in the oven for 30 minutes more. Remove the roasting pan from the oven, and carefully remove the springform from the water.  Remove foil and cool on wire rack until room temperature. Refrigerate until fully chilled.

Make the Topping:

Combine sour cream, Gentleman Jack, and powdered sugar and spread on top of cheesecake. Refrigerate until set.

Gently run a knife or thin metal spatula around inside edge of pan. When cheesecake has released, open outer pan ring and remove.

Notes

Feel free to substitute a dark Rum or Bourbon if you prefer. 

Tips to cheesecake success:

  • Room temperature ingredients
  • A sturdy springform pan
  • Combine the filling without beaters or a whisk. I use a food processor
  • Wrap the springform pan in foil and bake in a roasting pan filled with hot water half-way up the cheesecake pan
  • Cool slowly and refrigerate well before serving
  • More tips on how to remove the pesky springform bottom below in comments
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 90 min (plus chilling time)
  • Category: Desserts
  • Cuisine: American

Happy Thanksgiving and Gobble Gobble!

Thanksgiving bounty- multiple fall squash in a large wooden bowl

This post contains affiliate links. For more of my must-have favorites, including the mashed potato essential – a potato ricer – and the best book  ever on Thanksgiving, visit my shop.

© Copyright: KatyKeck.com 2017. All rights reserved.

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Grown-Up (Boozy) Pumpkin Cheesecake

Grown-Up (Boozy) Pumpkin Cheesecake

So before the pumpkin cheesecake,  I have a little story – we’ve had a teency tech glitch (I was no where near that) that apparently has kept about half of you from receiving these posts for the last month or so. No wonder you’re freaking. (Wink. Smile.)   However, I have a not-so-secret vault where you can find all the fabulous fabrications you’ve missed – it’s safe and sound, right where I left them on my website – katykeck.com/blog. Whew!  And thank you for sticking with me, even though I appear to be the laziest blogger EVER, seemingly not posting for weeks.  And now back to the pumpkin patch…………

A recent trip “up north”, as the Michiganders call it, involved some massive pumpkin finds. A couple were the size of Volvos and claimed to weigh more than 1400 pounds. Is there a scale for that? My sister said they looked like Jabba the Hutt – I think she’s right.  That extreme brush with fall produce reminded me of this Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake that I hadn’t made in years. It’s a carefully (not really) guarded secret recipe from the early days of New World Grill. When we first opened, with a kitchen only slightly larger than the one I had shared in Paris, there were way too many kinks to work out in the work flow to do desserts. So they were primarily outsourced. In house, we had a signature grilled fruit (genius – so far ahead of its time that the Zagat guide said “some things shouldn’t be grilled”. Duh. Really?), but the rest came from elsewhere. There was no reason on earth not to buy Ciao Bella gelato – they had every flavor imaginable and they custom produced whatever you needed. The chocolate ganache cake, while not the stuff of legends, was very good and had the shiniest sheen on top. A weency bit too shiny??  Perhaps.  Because Eric Asamov, CSI-slash-Restaurant Critic at the NY Times, received a slice with a thumb print on it. Total oops, but did he have to include that in his otherwise glowing review?  I did what I had to – made a million copies of the review (the NY Times, people!!!!) and got busy with an ink pad, covering every press kit with inky thumbprints.

Fall in Northern Michigan - pumpkin varieties

Our first fall at New World, the good folks at Jack Daniels offered the James Beard Foundation a $10,000 gift if 200 chefs featured their product on our menus throughout November. I created this recipe using Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey, a twice-filtered premium bottling. The Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Cheesecake was such a hit and so clearly made in-house that we were no longer able to get away with any commercially produced desserts (other than Ciao Bella). I got to add pastry chef to my ever-growing job description.   While I feel a special loyalty to the Gentleman, you can also try Jack Daniels or play around with bourbons (pecans in the crust) or dark rum (ginger in the filling), if the mood strikes. Dark rum would be a nice Island Twist with the ginger.

Now that I was officially a pastry chef (in between being a hostess, plumber, and expediter), I learned an awful lot about making cheesecake. We were a boutique (read: frickin small) venue, but I still cranked out 500 or more cheesecakes a year. I developed about a dozen different flavors which for me was the easy part. The part that took me a while to master was the equipment and techniques. Cracks and sinkholes were Public Enemy Number One. If you want to be serious about this you need a heavy duty, coated springform pan. Flimsy ones leak. Springs break. And aluminum might react with your filling flavor. Any good cooking supply store will carry them – and they are closer to $20 than $6, but they should last a very long time, especially if you don’t make 500 cheesecakes a year. Analon, Calphalon, and Kaiser make sturdy pans. The highest priority of a springform is being leak-proof.

Crust in a spring form pan with a spoon, Jack Daniels and eggs; and cheesecake batter going in the oven in a bain marie

Cheesecakes are best baked in a water bath, or bain marie. French for Mary’s Bath, the bain marie’s original namesake is likely an ancient alchemist named Mary, though some sources credit the Virgin Mary who was also extremely well-known for her cheesecakes. (Never.) Cheesecakes, like alchemy, benefit from gradual temperature changes. Try to rush this recipe and you will definitely get cracks.  While the prep time is minimal, it takes about 5 hours of planning and tempering the ingredients and cake. Your best results will come with room-temperature cream cheese and then slowly heating the cake in the oven in a water bath, followed by slow cooling – first in the bath in the turned off oven, then out of the bath on the counter. Because I was doing this professionally, I rued cracks in the cake, but fear not – I have topped this with a sour cream layer which will cover all cracks.  You’re welcome.

Another culprit of cheesecake deformity – which in case you have forgotten DOES NOT AFFECT HOW DELICIOUS THIS IS – is sinking. The evildoer behind the dreaded sink is air – first a pretty little puff, then a giant cave in. My tip for avoiding sinking middles is to incorporate as little air as possible – hence the use of a food processor, not a standmixer. And you will note that I only pulse in the eggs at the very end with just a few pulses. (Eggs are another culprit that might fluff up the cake – don’t let them.)  And lastly, there is the pan tapping at the end – getting rid of any excess air.

The recipe below is sure to boost your hostess cred and – bonus – you now have a template for cheesecake production. I will share more flavors in the months to come.  But for now…….

Gobble Gobble.

Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Cheesecake

Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake

Crust:

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  •  1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  •  1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
  •  1/4 cup melted butter

Filling:

  • 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
  • 24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
  •  5 ounces Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
  •  1 cup sugar
  •  1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
  •  1 Tablespoon ground ginger
  •  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  •  1 teaspoon ground clove
  •  1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  •  6 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

Topping:

  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 Tablespoons Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
  • 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
  1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine flour, brown sugar, pecans, and melted butter and mix until crumbs adhere. Press into a 9 or 10″ sturdy nonstick springform pan and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Remove and cool. Wrap pan in heavy duty foil. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.
  2. In food processor, puree pumpkin until smooth. Add cream cheese and puree until smooth. Add Gentleman Jack, sugar, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg and pulse until mixed. Add eggs and pulse 2 – 3 times only until just combined. Do not overprocess.
  3. Pour filling into cooled crust and tap pan lightly. Place in a roasting pan and fill with hot water, halfway up the side of the springform. Bake for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours or until set. It may still be a bit wobbly in the center but it will firm up as it cools.
  4. Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in water bath in oven for 30 minutes more. Remove roasting pan from oven, and carefully remove springform from water.  Remove foil and cool on wire rack until room temperature. Refrigerate until fully chilled.
  5. Combine sour cream, Gentleman Jack, and powdered sugar and spread on top of cheesecake. Refrigerate until set.
  6. Gently run a knife or thin metal spatula around inside edge of pan. When cheesecake has released, open outer pan ring and remove.

Serves 12.

Pumpkin ginger cheesecake© Copyright: KatyKeck.com 2015. All rights reserved.

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